The Movie (and TV show) Watching Thread

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Saw Avalon (the 1990 film by Barry Levinson). Connected deeply with it but it did hit a bit too close to home for me to laugh too much at it. Very engrossing. 10/10.

[Pouring Rain and Blairing Music]

Rewatched Down Periscope. Can’t believe the schmucks on Letterboxd only give it 2.7 stars. They wouldn’t know good comedy if it bit them on their tattooed dicks.

[Benjamin Frank 2.0]

A couple historical programs are now available on Youtube.

1.Turn-On was a program that aired briefly in 1969 (one episode.) It is arguably the first television show cancelled after just one episode. There are people who sensationalize even that to claim that it was cancelled before the first episode had even finished airing, because supposedly most west coast stations refused to broadcast it, but as far as I can tell, it was actually just two or three.

The program was a knock off of the very popular Laugh In and had a number of people involved with Laugh In, however Turn-On was more high tech involving a great deal of taped segments. I haven't yet watched it but many of these taped segments were experimental generally being sped up or with other technical effects. In this way, the show presaged MTV and other programs.

Apparently the show was cancelled due to complaints mostly from older and conservative television viewers who either found the taped segments physically off putting (hard on the eyes) or they didn't like the humor. If accurate, that's probably the most interesting party from a political perspective because apparently much of the show's humor was meant to appeal to 'alpha males' (or maybe the 'tech bros' of the late 1960s) so, it's likely many younger males now would likely have embraced the show and would have called any attempts to take it off the air 'cancel culture.'

Although only episode aired, because it was mostly taped segments, three episodes were mostly filmed although only two are on Youtube. However, each episode was to have a live guest host, so the second episode is a couple minutes shorter. The first host was comedian Tim Conway who was apparently both right wing and a big backer of the Vietnam War, which also would fit with the idea that these days right wingers would have embraced the show.

Episode One:

Episode Two:

2.Columbo: Enough Rope
No politics here. The Columbo character was first introduced in an anthology television series called The Chevy Mystery Show in 1960. It was one hour and aired live. This is a remaster. Bert Freed played Columbo. The script for this was turned into the first pilot Columbo movie and renamed 'Prescription Murder.'

For some reason, this doesn't start at the beginning here.

[Benjamin Frank 2.0]

Having now seen the first episode of Turn-On, I thought it was actually at least partly feminist, however I can see where 'Tech Bros' would like the show as well. The biggest criticism most people would have these days, which was apparently in a lot of the the reviews at the time, is that the verbal part of the show was not of the same interesting/experimental quality of the visual, that is to say it was mostly bad pun. So, of course, I liked it.

One line went something like 'the body politic says we need to address the cleavages in society.'

There is an S.I. Hayakawa reference early in the the episode.

[Benjamin Frank 2.0]

Watched all or part of the Columbo episodes A Trace of Murder, Ashes to Ashes, and Murder With Too Many Notes.

Murder With Too Many Notes makes no sense. Apparently director Patrick McGoohan's dementia had increased to a fairly severe level and he preferred the comedic and musical scenes while leaving out crucial plot points and apparently nobody involved in the show had the heart to tell him this.

Of course, whenever Patrick McGoohan is mentioned, it should be required to mention The Prisoner, which is brilliant.

This is the first time I've ever actually watched Columbo and I am pretty musically inclined so that episode didn't really bother me too much. But now that you mention it...I did find it rather silly, after giving it some thought, that the guy would be behind bars, unless police somehow uncovered the evidence.

This is a write up on the episode from the website Columbophile that details how Patrick McGoohan ripped it up (and apparently damaged the career of the writer of the episode.)

https://columbophile.com/2023/06/04/the-mystery-and-murder-of-murder-with-too-many-notes/

The reality is actually much darker than a kindly but dementia ridden Patrick McGoohan not realizing his scene choices messed up the episode.

(Jeff) Cava - the original script writer - closed his 1999 arbitration statement to the WGA recognizing the irony in what he was seeking. “It is my hope that this arbitration will afford me a shared credit, the credit I believe I have worked to deserve. This is probably out of line, but as I finish this statement, I can’t help but realize that I wrote a script about an upstart artist who is murdered by the mentor who takes his credit. Where’s Rod Serling?”

As that write up mentions, Jeff Cava was very much into film scores and wanted the episode to be partly an exploration of the importance of music in film, and not with the silly comedic scenes that McGoohan wrote. Cava was a regular contributor to a website called Film Score Monthly
https://www.filmscoremonthly.com/daily/index.cfm

[Kamala's side hoe]

Also, it's interesting to reflect on how attitudes on LGBT rights and individuals have changed in both the US and Taiwan since the movie was released 30 years ago- Taiwan was the first (and to date only; I don't think any others will follow suit in the foreseeable future) country in Pacific-facing Asia to legalize same-sex marriage (I've written about this here). (On that note, congratulations to Nepal for being the second country in Asia to legalize SSM!)

If you haven’t watched it, Comrades, Almost A Love Story is another really good Chinese movie that’s set in New York. Only the last 1/3 of Comrades is set in America (the first two acts are in Hong Kong), but it’s one of the best romances I’ve ever seen on screen.

I should probably finish the original Cantonese version of that movie while I'm recovering from my cold. Never got around to it in the latter half of last year; I realized I actually need to budget set chunks of time for catching up on movies and Netflix shows.

Also- Incantation is a critically acclaimed Taiwanese horror film on Netflix. Definitely considering rewatching it around Halloween!

(Update: pleasantly surprised that Thailand is now the 2nd country in Pacific-facing Asia to recognize SSM and did so sometime this decade! Was expecting a more substantive response on this message board to that piece of news than this)