What's on your Daily Viewing List? (6 Viewers)

[Dave Moritz]

June 4th, 2022 Saturday

Top Gun: Maverick
Unknown resolution
Dolby 7.1

This movies checks all the right boxes and catches up with Pete Mitchell (Maverick) many years later. This movie is great on the big screen and is well done. I am looking forward to adding this movie to my collection on 4K blu-ray.

Recommended: YES

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

Fire Island
Originally Released: 06/03/2022
Watched: 06/04/2022
4K digital streaming on Hulu via Roku Ultra

Recommended?

Why? Stand-up comedian Joel Kim Booster writes and stars in this deceptively smart and surprisingly faithful adaptation of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, with the romantic and social travails of the five Bennet daughters in Regency England is translated to a group of gay friends on their annual weeklong pilgrimage to 21st century Fire Island. It understands and winningly captures all of the facets that make the story so beloved: the unpretentious family of colorful and likable people, the difficulty of navigating a complex social environment with a lot of written and unwritten rules of behavior and social standing, and the epic love story of an attractive and witty protagonist who must overcome hasty first impressions to connect with a rather stiff and proudly aloof verbal sparring partner. It's a real crowdpleaser, at times laugh out loud funny, but also warm and begrudgingly sweet.

 

[Dave Moritz]

June 4th, 2022 Saturday

War Of The Worlds (1953)
4K Digital / Amazon Video
Mono

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

Princess Cyd
Originally Released: 11/03/2017
Watched: 06/05/2022
1080P HD digital streaming on Apple TV app, upscaled to 4K via Roku Ultra

Recommended?

Why? This indie drama handles some heavy subject matter with a delicate, understated touch. Nine years after her mother was killed in a murder-suicide while she slept in the next room, girly teenager Cyd (Jessie Pinnick) is sent by her depressive father to stay with her maternal aunt Miranda (Rebecca Spence) in Chicago. There she meets Katie, a butch barista with a difficult home life, and develops a crush immediately. As the days pass, Cyd and Miranda -- a famous author of spiritualist novels -- come to understand one another better as each pushes the other to expand their horizons a bit. The movie understands Cyd as queer, but not necessarily gay -- Katie is her first real love affair, but she has a boyfriend back home and fools around with another guy while in Chicago. She is young, her horizons are expanding rapidly, and she's still figuring out who she is, what she likes, and what her values are. Miranda's intellectual circles expose Cyd to people and ideas that she never encountered back home in South Carolina. Underlying it all, but never addressed directly, is the thing that connects Cyd and Miranda -- the violent, horrific death of the woman they both loved most in this world. The movie stays with them, captures their strange sort of sisterhood, has patience for the callow excesses of youth, and admiration for the hard-won pleasures of maturity.

 

[Keith Cobby]

The Deep (1977) - this underwater adventure still holds up really well. Very nice blu ray (101 films) with good supplements and booklet.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

Circus of Books
Originally Released: 04/22/2020
Watched: 06/06/2022
1080P HD digital streaming on Netflix, upscaled to 4K via Roku Ultra

Recommended?

Why? Rachel Mason made this documentary about her parents' business, Circus of Books -- West Hollywood's most notorious adult bookstore. Made during the business's waning days and final months, it looks back at Karen and Barry Mason's more than three decades in the hard core gay pornography business. If it were just a story about the business, it would be compelling enough: The long arc of the gay rights movement, starting before the Stonewall riots, through the AIDS epidemic, and through to Obergefell v. Hodges. The battle between the forces of free speech and the oppressive invective of the so-called Moral Majority and its allies within the Reagan administration. Among the talking heads are gay rights activists, civil rights attorneys, and even Larry Flynt himself. But because of who the filmmaker is, it's more personal and immediate than that. It's the story of a family, and how they were shaped by these forces and social changes. The modern day footage is intercut with home movies on video tape from when the director and her two brothers were much younger. If you've ever worked for a Jewish mom and pop operation for any length of time, even if the product was a bit more conventional than the Masons' incendiary wares, there are a lot of small moments -- reflective of values, scrappy ambition, and perseverance -- that will ring true. And you see how the sort of national controversies that swirled around Circus of Books also affected the Mason family personally. There are moments that feel uncomfortably intimate, where being in the audience feels like being a voyeur eavesdropping on private family matters. But that closeness, and that candidness, makes it difficult to turn the issues into abstractions, to stop seeing the people being affected. I never would have been the target audience for a place like Circus of Books, but by the end of the documentary I felt like it had mattered, and it felt bittersweet that this community institution's time had come and gone.

 

[dana martin]

Tonight's Feature Presentation

not bad, but then, they all pale to the two grail titles, Hercules / Hercules Unchained

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

Saved!
Originally Released: 05/28/2004
Watched: 06/07/2022
1080P HD digital streaming on Amazon Prime Video, upscaled to 4K via Roku Ultra

Recommended?

On What? Whether the movie's good intentions are enough to compensate for the fact that it satirizes evangelical hypocrisy with the subtlety of a sledgehammer.

This movie feels a bit like a parallel story to But I'm a Cheerleader, only told from the point of view of the people left behind. Mary is a devoutly religious student at an evangelical Christian high school, who is shocked when her boyfriend comes out to her as gay. In desperation, and struck by seemingly divine intervention, she decides to save him from his wicked ways by screwing the gay away. Needless to say, it doesn't work; her boyfriend gets sent away for gay conversion therapy while she discovers that her misguided attempt has gotten her pregnant. I remember watching this movie shortly after it came out on video, and liking it better than i did tonight. Not because it doesn't have worthwhile points to make, but because it too often paints things as black and white. The characters who are most outwardly pious at the beginning, aside from Mary herself, are of course revealed to be the most morally compromised. And the characters who are least outwardly pious at the beginning of the movie are of course revealed to be the most morally upstanding by the end. It all felt a little too neat and too tidy. And it wasn't weird enough; all of the rebellious characters are rebellious in the ways that rebellious characters always rebel in teen comedies. If you're going to throw in your allegiance with the freaks, let them be a little bit more freaky and unorthodox. Still, most of the characters are more misguided than truly evil, and Mary -- as played by Jenna Malone -- is a winning protagonist. The supporting cast is mostly strong too, doing their best within the limitations of the material. Chad Faust is particularly wonderful with his relatively limited screen time as the gay boyfriend, Dean. He radiates kindness and self-acceptance; much like Mary, you get the sense that he has come out the other side of this thing stronger.

 

[Thomas T]

 

[John Sparks]

...now for a little reality THE TIME TRAVELERS! You would have thought that KL would have removed the cue marks. I guess it depends on the movie. Picture wise, the colors were much more subdued than the DVD and it was presented in wide screen. I did a side by side, kinda like WAR OF THE WORLDS, DVD was bright and the BD subdued. The DVD was 1.37:1.

When I collected original movies posters, I owned this and it was beautiful! There was some really great looking posters coming out of that era.

 

[Dave Moritz]

June 9th, 2022

Since Jurassic World: Dominion is being released this coming weekend I decided to watch the first original Jurassic Park movies. Will most likely watch one of the Jurassic World movies before going to see the new Jurassic World: Dominion this weekend.

Jurassic Park
4K Blu-ray / HDR
DTS-X 7.2.4

 

[John Sparks]

June 9th, 2022

Since Jurassic World: Dominion is being released this coming weekend I decided to watch the first original Jurassic Park movies. Will most likely watch one of the Jurassic World movies before going to see the new Jurassic World: Dominion this weekend.

Jurassic Park
4K Blu-ray / HDR
DTS-X 7.2.4


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You need to watch the ones that came out in 3D to make them really shine!!!

 

[Dave Moritz]

You need to watch the ones that came out in 3D to make them really shine!!!

3D would be cool but I never looked into if my Sony OLED could even do 3D. I am however watching from a 4K blu-ray which has a very good picture.

Thursday, June 9th, 2022

Jurassic Park
4K Blu-ray / HDR
DTS-X 7.2.4


Friday, June 10th, 2022


Jurassic World
4K Blu-ray / HDR
DTS-X 7.2.4

Tomorrow the place is to see Jurassic World: Dominion at the theater.

 

[Dave Moritz]

June 11th, 2022 Saturday

Jurassic World: Dominion
IMAX
Dolby Atmos
Regal Cinema / IMAX / South Gate, California

 

[Keith Cobby]

During the weekend:
The Venetian Affair - first (and last) viewing of this poor spy film. Robert Vaughn is top billed but he can't carry this film, really a small screen lead (DVD).

The Oscar - first viewing of this film. Stephen Boyd is terrific as the lead in this often told tale of an actor's rise from obscurity and subsequent demise. Great supporting cast, and a fine blu ray from KL.

The Million Eyes of Su Muru + The Girl from Rio - Eurospy action starring Shirley Eaton (Blue Underground blu ray).

 

[Dave Moritz]

June 12th, 2022 Saturday

Jet Li's: Fearless
1080p Blu-ray
DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 upmixed to Auro 7.2

I have always enjoyed this movie as it has a very good storyline at it's core. I enjoy it every time I see it and for me it takes a little more to follow being in Chinese and doing the subtitles but very enjoyable.

 

[Toronto Argonauts]

Tonight: I haven't been on the forum for a while as I have been fighting Corvid 19 and Cancer for the last few months fortunately I got all my shots for Covid plus the booster. So tonight I am getting back into the groove of movie watching starting with Saboteur.

 

[English Invader]

Crystal Lake Memories: the Complete History of Friday 13th

Six hour documentary that covers every film from the original to the reboot in in-depth detail. Most of the acting and production talent are there for interviews and there is much insight into the making of these films. These films were a lot harder to make than most people realise because of budget constraints and the pre-CGI special effects that were required.

 

[Robin9]

In another thread, a recent post suggested The Man I Love ought to come out on Blu-ray disc, so I re-watched the DVD-R last night for the first time in years. The picture quality didn't seem as bad as it did the last time I watched this disc although that may have been because a 50" plasma is not as ruthless as a 10 foot wide projector screen. It may also be that my eyes are older now!

I really like this film, partly because romantic melodrama is right up my street, partly because the music is my kind and partly because the cast is so good with two Cary Grant look-alikes and four of Warner's best actresses. Ida Lupino is nearly always good so it was no surprise that her performance was spot on. Andrea King holds a fascination for me because she was an unusually flexible actress and she was excellent in a role very different from many others she played. Martha Vickers and Dolores Moran were supporting actresses who would have become stars with a bit more luck.

I was impressed with the film's candour about the lecherous predator played by Robert Alda.

I don't know if The Man I Love will ever be given an Warner Archive Blu-ray disc but I'll be first in line if one appears.

 

[TJPC]

I often buy a new Blu ray iteration of a movie I already have on DVD after reading about how wonderful it looks. This lead me to dig out my DVD copy of "The Pajama Game".

I mainly watch discs on either the 45' TV in the main living room or the 65' in our basement. I think it may be due to the size of my TVs or my 70 year old eyes, but I rarely really see enough differences between the two formats to warrent the upgrade. Mind you if the film has been restored for Blu ray with lots of new extras I am in. I also only purchase new films and TV shows on Blu.

Back to "The Pajama Game". The image on DVD was certainly really acceptable to me. Also, it must me 10 years since I saw it last and 10 years before I see it again! I will not be upgrading. (Even though this DVD was borrowed and copied on DVD-R from the public library).