What I Watched: The original Addams Family, which ran from 1964-1966. It is happy nostalgia television for me; I can remember lying on the floor watching the show as I drew my own paper dolls and their extensive wardrobes.
Watching it today, I see subversive, “stick it to the man” themes, acceptance of differences, and familial affection as reoccurring foci (much like our focus here at DS).
John Astin, who played Gomez, is still alive at age 94. He married Patty Duke, America’s Sweetheart, when she was 26 and he was 42; the marriage lasted for 13 years, and he adopted her son Sean.
You rang? My favorite character was Lurch (played by Ted Cassidy), who managed to elicit a world of unspoken expression and commentary from a groan or a growl. Fun fact, he also played the character Thing (the sentient hand).
What I Read: The Lazy Girl’s Guide To Magic : The Complete Series by Helen Harper:
Delightful reading for my required escape from reality. The four book set is available on sale at Amazon for $9.99. Here’s the series blurb, and that of book one:
Meet Ivy Wilde – the laziest witch this side of the Atlantic. Let’s get one thing straight – she is not a heroine. In fact, she’s probably the last witch in the world who you’d call if you needed a magical helping hand. If it were down to Ivy, she’d spend all day every day on her sofa where she could watch TV, munch junk food and talk to her feline familiar to her heart’s content. Of course, life rarely deals you the hand you expect…
Book 1, Slouch Witch: When a bureaucratic disaster ends up with Ivy as the victim of a case of mistaken identity, she’s yanked very unwillingly into Arcane Branch, the investigative department of the Hallowed Order of Magical Enlightenment. Her problems are quadrupled when a valuable object is stolen right from under the Order’s noses. It doesn’t exactly help that she’s been magically bound to Adeptus Exemptus Raphael Winter. He might have piercing sapphire eyes and a body which a cover model would be proud of but, as far as Ivy’s concerned, he’s a walking advertisement for the joyless perils of too much witch-work. And if he makes her go to the gym again, she’s definitely going to turn him into a frog.
What I Listened To: Renny Conti – Room to Room; Skegss – Out Of My Head; and Wings of Desire – Shut Up & Listen:
Thank you for playing Brain Drain! How are you, darling DeadSplinterites? What’s going on? Please do share with us!
John Astin!
AHHHH! TOO MANY BRAIN DRAINS AND I DON’T HAVE ENOUGH BRAINS
Loved the Addams Family, and you’re right, it still holds up remarkably well. My dad went to college with Ted Cassidy (same college I went to, actually). Cassidy played basketball, of course.
Finished Agatha All Along, and I am pretty disappointed. It’s basically an extended and fairly disjointed origin story for one character who will become an Avenger, maybe. I doubt this show’s ratings will push Disney to jump right on that. It had a great cast that was largely squandered on a crappy script and Agatha herself becomes less and less likeable as the series progresses until you hit the finale and wonder, why do I care about this?
I started that, and there was something about she was a detective?
If you’re kicking off with a stunt, the stunt itself has to be worth watching, and this really didn’t work for me so I dropped it.
…the character as-depicted-in-wandavision was rather noticeably more likeable than I recall ever seeing her portrayed in comics…so…maybe that’s why I still haven’t gotten around to trying…but I think I hoped for better than that pair of reviews suggest I’d find?
Oh keep with it. The detective thing is because she’s under the spell still from Wanda and doesn’t realize it. I thought it was a very entertaining thing to kick it off with. Also that scene where she goes to her “car” had me cracking up!
Oh hard disagree, I thought it was one of the best MCU shows to date.
I wanted the last episode to be more about her than Teen, but eh still loved it. I liked the twists and really enjoyed the cast together.
…apparently nothing I watched is currently in whatever passes for my memory…although I think I watched some stuff?
…saw slow horses but I swear that seems too long ago to have been in the last week…did think it was pretty good, though
…also found out that there’s a film called “wolf warrior 2” in which frank grillo is the bad guy…& it posted better numbers than anything but the force awakens in north america for box office in a single market…&…that put some things in perspective, you might say?
…I remember years ago trying to explain to someone talking about how massive “the big two” US brands were in a marketplace context what it meant that in japan you could shift weekly comic collections the size of a phone book in numbers newsweek would have loved to boast for global sales…but once in a while it’s curious to think of the big money in cinema not being a hollywood thing?
…pretty sure wolf warrior 2 is not a work of cinematic genius…not to mention it came out in ’17…but…I guess if they liked scott adkins in the first installment they really must have taken to frank?
…also…they aren’t the murderbot diaries…but john scalzi’s old man’s war series was pretty good…more of a rotating than recurring cast but still likeable enough?
We watched season 1 of a Nordic noir show called “The Killing”. It’s Danish and moves very slow. There are 20 episodes in the season and we’re on #18 and they still haven’t solved it, so these are some very bad detectives. It’s got Lars Mikkelson who is very good (and is the older brother of Mads Mikkelson). We’re going to need something a little lighter after this and we’re looking for suggestions.
Today is the last day of early voting in Virginia, so I’m wrapping up my shuttling duties, bringing mainly older folks and those with issues traveling to the polls. I’ve met some great people.
…is that the OG the killing?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Killing_(Danish_TV_series)
…aka why danish detectives have to have serious knitwear game?
…sarah lund may be no saga norén…but she’s not really a rubbish detective…iirc?
Yes, we’re watching the Sarah Lund The Killing. It’s a quality show but man, it goes on. So far, they’ve arrested just about everyone in Copenhagen except the killer. Red herring’s everywhere.
P.S.
…only saw part of the first episode but “shrinking” has harrison ford in full gumpy old git mode as one of a trio of shrinks in a practice…the one who’s not white & not a guy seems pretty together but the younger white dude is having an existential crisis & starts giving his patients advice that’s more the voice of exasperation than experience
…it’s…lighter than the killing…might even be quite fun?
…or if you can find it on britbox or iplayer or wherever the BBC will let you…Ludwig has david mitchell as the puzzle-setting twin brother of a policeman who goes missing…&…as the saying goes…hilarity ensues
…it’s not a long season but that’s quite fun?
What I Watched: An excellent “Love Boat” doubleheader. The gang flies off to Sydney, Australia. There, Captain Stuebing (Murray, from “The Mary Tyler Moore” show) takes command of a ship. Off they go on a South Seas cruise. Onboard is Montana born-and-bred Patrick Duffy (“Dallas”) who adopts a slight British accent because he is a New Zealand rancher. That is not the way New Zealanders speak, believe me. He is in hot pursuit of Michelle Philips (“Mamas and the Papas;” mom of Mackenzie) who looks incredibly beautiful. She is supposed to be an English teacher. Can you imagine how much it must have cost at the time to fly to Sydney and then go on a South Seas cruise, and all this on a teacher’s salary?
Also on board (and this is a very strange side plot) are anthropologist Harry Morgan (Colonel Blake, from “M*A*S*H”) and his disaffected wife, Katherine Helmond (“Soap,”) along with fellow anthropologist …not the main character from 30something, but the guy who was their best friend.
You know who wasn’t onboard was Cruise Director Julie McCoy. We’re watching these episodes out of order so I have no idea how this came to pass, but it turns out Julie is living with her fiancé on his grandmother’s animal refuge in Australia where she bottle-feeds baby kangaroos.
I really didn’t know what to make of any of this.
It means in reality Lauren Tewes (the actor who played Julie) was face deep in a bad coke addiction.
I saw the stupidest fucking movie on Prime (where there’s a lot of garbage) ever. I don’t know why I thought seeing Invasion USA was a good idea. Maybe with mom in the hospital I wanted to go back to my childhood and watch a movie I missed as a kid. It was the slowest hour ever (I fast forwarded a chunk of the movie.)
It’s a fucking Cannon Film so expect a lot of less than subtle racism and over the top violence and a plot that barely makes any sense. Basically, it’s a Chuck Norris vs terrorists led by Richard Lynch, an actor whose career was basically playing scene chewing B-movie baddies. The premise wasn’t entirely stupid, Soviet led terrorists run amok in US Murrica but the execution was… uh very. Even the climax wasn’t much.
It even had a not so subtle nod to Scarface, but it didn’t make any sense.
If all you got was local news and most of your entertainment was basically Cannon movies from the 1980s then I get why your world view would be so warped that you become a MAGAt. This movie catered to the stupidest of the stupid like most movies from Cannon.
Even for a Chuck Norris film, this was extra stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid.
I don’t recommend it for anyone unless you like terrible Cannon movies (and it may make me question my friendship with you.) Hell, I don’t blame you if you give me virtual side eye.
i dont have anything to add to the brain drain….but i did bump into wednesday adams earlier
well…a kid dressed up as
seems theres a spoopy walk on…and the kiddie farm near me is one of the stops…..its all dressed up with red eyed ghosts and spoopy sound effects and shit
i guess halloween is starting to get a foothold here……just on the nearest saturday and not actually halloween…
either way…it was nice to see
Some of the cities around me always do their halloween on the closest Saturday. I can understand that but also I loved it when I was a kid and got to go out and do things on a school night.
it makes sense
i just didnt think of it… coz when i was a kid…things happened on the day regardless