What I Watched: Ā Continuing my watching of old, campy B-movies, I saw The Bat with Vincent Price.
Novelist Cornelia van Gorder (Agnes Moorehead), has rented a country house which not long ago had been the scene of murders committed by a criminal known as “The Bat”. She seeks Dr. Malcolm Wells (Vincent Price) help to unravel the mystery.
This movie is 65 years old, and it is worth watching from a cultural time machine point-of-view, if nothing else (the cars, the clothing, the hairstyles, oh my). You can watch it for free on YouTube.
What I Read: A Vicious Machination: A Regency Cozy (Beatrice Hyde-Clare Mysteries Book 12) by Lynn Messina. I am fond of this series, with a heroine who is neither a great beauty nor excessively slim, but is possessed of a fine sharp mind, and succeeds on the merits of her wits. There are worse ways to spend your summer than to start at book 1 of the series and immerse yourself in the world of āHer Outrageousnessā.
As eager as Beatrice, Duchess of Kesgrave, is to meet her husbandās newly discovered illegitimate half sister, she does not want it to happen like this: in the keeper’s house at Newgate. Yes, that Newgate, the abject prison filled with squalor and misery to which Verity Lark has been consigned for murder. Found standing over the slain corpse of an old tormentor with a still-warm pistol in her hand, she is obviously guilty. It is an open-and-shut case with little for an unduly curious duchess to investigate.
What I Listened To: Zzzahara – Wish You Would Notice (Know This); Thom Southern – Hey What’s Happenin?; and Jeff Lamb – Sirens:
Thank you for playing Brain Drain! How are you, Darling DeadSplinterites? Whatās going on, dearest ones? Please do share with us!
Vincent Price, the original zaddy.
@HammerZeitgeist you just know that he was a very naughty boy . . .
I loved this show.
It always ended with a psychadelic music number.
Someone here recently recommended The Beekeeper which I liked, and then I followed it up with Safe.
Both are solid Jason Statham movies, and you get just what you expect. They have the same problem, which is the scenes with a ton of generic bad guys getting mowed down like storm troopers. But these movies don’t drag out anything and the plot keeps moving.
Beekeeper is on my watch list from the prior DS recommendations. I should really get out of last century viewing and watch it @bluedogcollar.
It’s absolutely shallow and dumb, but it’s fun like watching John Wick.
I cannot tell you how good The Bat is.
What I watched:
“Non-Stop.” I thought it was atrocious but maybe I’m just jaded from all the other airliner in distress movies I’ve seen. I bailed after about half an hour.
I only watched it because Michelle Dockery (Lady Mary) plays a flight attendant. This came out during the “Downton” era so she was at her full powers. She, by then, had been steeped in the methods of the Julian Fellowes School of the Dramatic Arts so she does a lot of staring.
My favorite “Downton” segment that devolved into a total stare-a-thon was the episode where Lord Grantham announces to his garden party guests that “we are at war with Germany.” Sadly, there’s no voulme to this clip, but just move right along to 4:14 to see what I mean:
I’ve regrettably never seen Downtown Abbey, but based on all the DS discussion about it and the costumes I really should. I might end up with some wardrobe additions. When I binged all the Phryne Fisher books, I ended up buying her preferred perfume (Jicky by Guerlain), drinking her favorite cocktails (the Aviation for example), and trying the eyeliner style. Who knows what Downtown Abbey might inspire?
…so, I think it was @luigi-vuoto who put in a word for supacell while I was AWOL…& I seemed to shoot through that pretty quick…for them as like such things there’s a second season of star trek prodigy (animated mainly-for-kids thing)…also dipped into some more netflix-friendly manga…dr stone…post petrification-apocalypse lord of the flies meets battle royale with a side of elementary science…& the rise of the shield hero…underappreciated defensive RPG character in yet another if-tron-was-set-in-world-of-warcraft thing
…also saw a liam neeson thing called in the land of saints & sinners…slow paced rural irish deal with a pretty good cast about your classic hitman with scruples & a child in distress
…& caught up with the acolyte…when did bare-arm blocks of lightsabers become a thing…did I miss a memo?
…that said…it might be better than I thought it started out…not andor better…but…better than the boba fett thing, maybe?
Excellent line: “classic hitman with scruples & a child in distress.”
I enjoyed Land of Saints and Sinners too.
…oh, also…they’re not new…think there’s a box-set at this point…but re-read the penguin installment of the batman “one bad day” one-shots…it’s pretty good…reminds me there’s a few things like that out there…one where a henchman gets out of lock up & goes looking for work…think that was before the one bad day ones…some of the gotham PD stuff…the batman-adjacent storyline is a pretty deep well, it turns out?
Last night the Mrs and I watched a movie called “The Taste of Things” with Juliette Binoche.Ā Two hours and ten minutes of French people cooking, then eating and drinking.Ā It was good.
It was your classic chef with scruples & a cook in distress tale (to paraphrase @SplinterRIP).
Ooooh I love watching French people gather for a meal and hopefully lots of tea!
Good rec. I’m going to check that out.
i might try to watch the bat in a bit
other than slowly catching up on the boys…i havent watched anything….only thing ive read is emails at work…mostly about why shit isnt getting shipped (spoiler its coz we dont have said shit despite what managements stock levels say)
ive not even had time for finding new musics
tho…i am currently checking out the death of slim shady album
what what what!? its a series now?
oh god so many bad puns and references……guess i have to watch it