Milburn Stone

Super-creative (like the show so consistently is). But yeah, it brought back too many memories of watching The Island of Dr. Moreau on the Late Late Movie when I was a kid. I couldn't laugh! As a Sunday School teacher whose pupils are approximately sixty years younger than himself, I kept saying "Oh God, I hope that's not me."

I know! You think it's going to be ironic, or camp, or ridiculous...and it's none of those things. As for the album cover shown in the YouTube, the song isn't actually on that album. The person who uploaded the song decided (God knows why) to make that be the visual. It's about as far away from the feeling of the song, and S&E's performance of it, as you can get. And yet...maybe the contrast is brilliant?

So, I really like Steve & Eydie's cover of Black Hole Sun. Don't laugh until you've heard it. https://youtu.be/VgGBB0hTqo0?feature=shared

Bill Cosby sat in front of me on a flight. He was actually wearing a Cosby sweater! I did not see him put anything in anyone's drink.

I've always had the impression (who knows where I got it) that Night and Day and Rhapsody in Blue were terrible movies in a way that Words and Music is not. Terrible beyond the risibly unfactual. But you're suggesting that they have their merits, so I will have to dismantle the firewall that has kept me from ever watching them.

Loved the two-episode French mystery/crime drama Piégés, showing on the MHz subchannel of Prime. It stars Odile Vuillemin of Profilage/Paris Murders fame.

I really wish this same creative team (in front of and behind the camera) would do a show without the stupid murder-mystery premise, which they're unable to make work.

For decades I thought Gordon Lightfoot was singing "every highway." Then one day, visiting friends in Scottsdale, we did a day trip, and came upon a road called Carefree Highway. Epiphany!

Just putting a message in a bottle to see if there are any Sinatra devotees here besides me. I enjoy many singers, but no one does it for me like Sinatra. I love the Capitol years, but find myself listening to the Reprise years more often. For me, those years in the sixties were his peak, even though technically the voice was better in the fifties. I could never explain what his music does for me. But whatever it is, it does it.

I guess I'm an audiophile, even though my home system cost "only" $2500 and some who also call themselves audiophiles spend anywhere between a hundred grand and a million bucks! How can we share the same label? I guess it comes to down to knowing what good sound is, and desiring to approximate it. Anyway, I thought I'd pass along a tip. I found bluetooth earbuds on Amazon that are really good for around $25. Seriously, I doubt that AirPod Pros, B&W, Sennheiser, et. al., sound appreciably better than these. They're called the Tozo T9. The name sounds Japanese (on purpose) but of course they're from China. You can thank me later.

Watched the first twenty minutes or so of Some Came Running on Watch TCM. This movie has a power over me that I can't explain. No matter how many times I see it, it pulls me back in. Somebody tell me what it is.

Jon Meacham's And There Was Light is more than a biography of Lincoln, it's like a biography of the America in which he lived. Without giving a book report, I'll say that I thought I knew a lot of the history, but I'm discovering there was a lot I didn't know, that's making me go "oh f**k." He doesn't compare events to what we're going through today, but his intention is definitely to lead the reader to compare them. I've never been one to say about today's events that "we're headed for civil war," but reading the book, I'm questioning my confidence about that.

I like FBDO, but thank you for reminding me of Three O'Clock High, which I agree, was fantastic.

I watched the first ten or fifteen minutes and felt the same. I've never seen Top Chef but I have seen both Knives Out movies, some episodes of Below Deck, all of Succession, a bunch of Agatha Christie movies, and at least forty other things that made me say been there done that.

It will be cool when Barbie becomes the biggest movie of all time, adjusted for inflation. (The Hollywood Reporter article makes a point in the headline that the figures quoted are not adjusted for inflation.) Barbie may be close to that already. But just to satisfy my curiosity, I'd like to see how it compares to Jaws, the first Star Wars, E.T., and other megahits, when all past figures are put into 2023 dollars. I'm rooting for Barbie, just because it's fun to see records broken.

I loved that subtext. We didn't see ordinary New Yorkers in their homes watching the channel 8 news, but we could "see" them in our minds, and also hear them, and what they were saying was, "Just another day living in New York." I doubt that the mass hypnosis was even necessary.

I just checked a map to confirm my memory. The Staten Island Ferry never goes near the Brooklyn Bridge, or any bridge. It docks at the Whitehall Terminal at the very tip of lower Manhattan.

I loved everything about this finale. I only have one question, which could be the result of me missing a line of dialogue or something. So...Agnes rescued Alice from near-death by murdering Clem, and whisks her out of the building. Yet Agnes died of smoke inhalation. There was no fire in the house until Agnes set it. I can't remember if Alice was still in the building when the fire started, but if she was, why did Agnes inhale so much smoke when Alice didn't? Wouldn't Agnes get both herself and Alice out of the building as quickly as possible? Did she get Alice out of the building and then go back in?

I watched part of the Loretta Young one from the post-war, anti-Commie years where she played a boring suburban Mary Sue wife married to devious Barry Sullivan, and I was...bored. But I do like her in that one with Orson Welles as the Nazi infiltrator and she's the daughter of a Supreme Court judge. She at least has some "animal magnetism" going on.

Thank you to everyone who's recommended Agatha Raisin! A detective show with humor that's actually charming and funny instead of just trying to be. (I'm looking at you, Brokenwood.) Watched the first one last night. The ninety minutes flew right by. I love all the characters in the village, and Agatha herself--and how the murder didn't even happen until what seemed like halfway through. Wonder if that will be a pattern. Anyway, top-notch in all departments, in front of and behind the camera.

Finally got around to watching. Bailed after about twenty minutes. What exactly was the necessity of that flashback between Beth and Rip? To set up another "prequel" once Taylor Sheridan loses Kevin Costner? I hoped the show would redeem itself after the awful spinoff-attempting S4. But no.

Great episode. We (the audience) knew that Dylan was Clem Redux an episode or two ago, and you want to shout that out to Alice, but I guess it's true to life that victims repeat patterns. Despite the audience knowing where the Dylan/Alice relationship was headed, it was still harrowing. The actress who plays Twig is awesome. Her breakdown was so authentic and moving. And this show has to be some of Sigourney Weaver's best work ever.

MMV, but I enjoyed her persistence.

Am I wrong, or did Watch TCM used to have everything that was on TCM in the prior week or so? I wish I could catch up with this one. Your description makes it sound pretty awesome.

Watched the first episode of Hinterland last night. Was kind of hoping it was going to be a continuing story rather than a self-contained episode, but it was pretty good. At times had an unwelcome thought that this was Shetland in Wales--even down to a Tosh semi-lookalike sidekick--but the scenery was awesome. I can't wait for the real Shetland's return. Even with a different lead, I have confidence in the show runners to do their magic.