I Just Watched...

[Lorna]

okay, it's been quiet, so I'm going to indulge in another MURDER, SHE REVIEW

Last night, I watched



this SEASON 2 EPISODE was interesting for a variety of reasons- it's got rather a different all-around tone and feel than most other episodes (it was filmed not on a soundstage, but almost entirely at GRAYSTONE MANOR in Beverly Hills) and it is one of the only episodes I can think of where JESSICA is just...well, not herself.

there are even moments where she's kind of a dick- like where she orders ESTHER ROLLE to fetch a dead canary out of a bedroom, like "it's four in the morning, can you not do it, White Woman?" or toys with the killer or kinda comes off as an intrusive busybody.

this episode is supposedly set in CINCINATTI and yet BEN MURPHY drives his car off of a cliff that looks an awful awful lot like Southern California.

ANN BLYTH is in this and I don't care if she's not giving UTA HAGEN, I am 1000% here for AGED, GLAMOUROUS FILM STARS PANICKING IN A SERIES OF ELABORATE NIGHTGOWNS, MORNING FROCKS AND CAFTANS.

THERE is a weird scene in the living room where THE SOUND IS TERRIBLE, I am curious as to why they didn't redub it (maybe no money or no time)

SPOILER:

The reveal is that THE DAUGHTER (whose hair is TERRIBLE) and THE GARDENER (WINGS HAUSER- whose hair is also TERRIBLE) have been conspiring to drive ANN BLYTH mad and are THE KILLERS. Looking back, I'd say it would be fun to risk a rewrite where EVERYONE is guilty- they've all been working together (THE DOCTOR and ESTHER ROLLE too). but no.

[Lorna]

MAY AS WELL CHARGE HER HAIRDRESSER TOO WHILE YOU'RE AT IT. YIKES.

[Hibi]

CI,

Hope Cleveland Clinic can help your dad. They are the best in our area, as I'm sure you know.

LOL about the foghorn censor! I've never, ever experienced that! (yet) Aside from the lengthy commercial breaks, it also bugs me they are much louder than the program. Wasn't there a law passed about that years ago? I always get the remote an switch the channel when something comes on, but I'm not always near the tv to get to the remote in time. I have Type 2 Diabetes and I'm Managing it Well (I Do!); Snuggies and the Lume Lady are at the top of my list! As well as the Droning Medicare ones and the phony call center BS ones...

I loved that show, The Powers That Be! It wasn't on very long but it was very funny and where I discovered David Hyde Pierce. I've always loved Holland Taylor. I could never remember the name of that show.

[Hibi]

okay, it's been quiet, so I'm going to indulge in another MURDER, SHE REVIEW

Last night, I watched



this SEASON 2 EPISODE was interesting for a variety of reasons- it's got rather a different all-around tone and feel than most other episodes (it was filmed not on a soundstage, but almost entirely at GRAYSTONE MANOR in Beverly Hills) and it is one of the only episodes I can think of where JESSICA is just...well, not herself.


I never realized it was filmed at Greystone! (at least the exteriors)



there are even moments where she's kind of a dick- like where she orders ESTHER ROLLE to fetch a dead canary out of a bedroom, like "it's four in the morning, can you not do it, White Woman?" or toys with the killer or kinda comes off as an intrusive busybody.



LOL. When I first saw this I felt how far Rolle had fallen. The star of Good Times, and a decade later playing a domestic role again... She did have a few good lines.




this episode is supposedly set in CINCINATTI and yet BEN MURPHY drives his car off of a cliff that looks an awful awful lot like Southern California.





IT WAS???????????? I must've missed that. I just assumed it was somewhere in CA as it looked it!





ANN BLYTH is in this and I don't care if she's not giving UTA HAGEN, I am 1000% here for AGED GLAMOUROUS FILM STARS PANICKING IN A SERIES OF ELABORATE NIGHTGOWNS, MORNING FROCKS AND CAFTANS.


She looked great and why not? Her hubby was a plastic surgeon!!!





THERE is a weird scene in the living room where THE SOUND IS TERRIBLE, I am curious as to why they didn't redub it (maybe no money or no time)

SPOILER:

The revel is that THE DAUGHTER (whose hair is TERRIBLE) and THE GARDENER (WINGS HAUSER- UGH!) have been conspiring to drive ANN BLYTH mad and are THE KILLERS. Looking back, I'd say it would be fun to risk a rewrite where EVERYONE is guilty- they've all been working together (THE DOCTOR and ESTHER ROLLE too). but no.

LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Hibi]

MAY AS WELL CHARGE HER HAIRDRESSER TOO WHILE YOU'RE AT IT. YIKES.

MORE 80s BAD HAIR!!!!!!!!!!!

[Lorna]

MORE 80s BAD HAIR!!!!!!!!!!!

THIS PARTICULAR BAD HAIR IS TIMELESS.
Like, the "bad" girl in many a 1950's PSA about "GOOD GROOMING SKILLS AND YOU" had hair JUST LIKE IT.

**AMENDED TO ADD that curly hair is LOVELY, but like all hair it most be combed and conditioned, and it will help if you can commit to parting it SOMEWHERE as opposed to "just all over in whatever direction."

[CinemaInternational]

Nobody could ever say that director Paul Verhoeven operated out of good taste. He always set out to scandalize moviegoers and he did it time again in his home turf of the Netherlands and in his US period, which included Showgirls, Basic Instinct, Robocop, and Total Recall. Indeed, all but one of his films in his US period were originally handed an X/NC-17. The first of these is the subject of this mini-review, and that is 1985's Flesh and Blood, which definitely lives up to its name. This is a brutal medieval set film that seems ready to always bludgeon and attack the audience: In it, a young woman (Jennifer Jason Leigh) is kidnapped and physically ravished (at first against her will) by an amoral mercenary (Rutgar Hauer) while her beau (Tom Burlinson) tries to fight to save her, complicated by the fact that Hauer has become obsessed by Leigh. It also includes tons of breasts, multiple full frontal nude shots of Leigh, a brief full frontal shot of a man, a partially nude nun, a murderous cardinal, an insult to the Eucharist, rape, decaying bodies hanging from trees, characters getting run through by swords and pikes, a severed limb, a dog getting killed with a pike and then getting dismembered, a silhouette of oral sex, self-flagellation, a graphic near-strangulation, and sundry other shocking elements. Oh, and if that wasn't enough, it also includes mass casualties of the black plague due to infected water and burning lesions. Frankly it's all extremely excessive overkill, although there are elements of what could be a very interesting film if it had been more subdued, the cinematography, costumes, and sets are impressive, and Susan Tyrell does her typically amusing scenery chewing in a supporting part as a very earthy character . But as it stands, its still too off-color for everyone really despite obvious craftsmanship abounding.

[Hibi]

MORE 80s BAD HAIR!!!!!!!!!!!

THIS PARTICULAR BAD HAIR IS TIMELESS.
Like, the "bad" girl in many a 1950's PSA about "GOOD GROOMING SKILLS AND YOU" had hair JUST LIKE IT.

**AMENDED TO ADD that curly hair is LOVELY, but like all hair it most be combed and conditioned, and it will help if you can commit to parting it SOMEWHERE as opposed to "just all over in whatever direction."

LMREO!!!

[Andree]

I'll catch it on a rerun. The other show was just an hr. so I'm sure this one goes into greater detail. Sometimes those 2 hr shows feel padded, but sometimes they are worth it for the additional info. What a family!

This one didn't seem too padded for the most part. There were so many nuts in this family involved
in so many crazy schemes that it kept things interesting. I haven't even looked at what's on ID tonight.
I'll check it out later.

[CinemaInternational]

I swung into the world of new releases to take a look at Golda (2023), which has Helen Mirren playing the Israeli prime minister at one of the most intense moments of her tenure: the Yom Kippur War of 1973, a war which the film posits might not have been quite as brutal if Golda had mobilized the moment she first heard rumors that the war was about to start. As it stands, the film is very earnest , humorless, and bleak, with a color scheme in grim dark tones and a mordantly monotonous musical score. It certainly isn't a very populated film, other than Mirren, the only name actor in the film is Liev Scriebner as Henry Kissinger, with whom Meir had a tempestuous professional relationship with. Mirren is physically unrecognizable as the chain-smoking Meir, her performance is very strong (as usual) and really the sole reason to check it out. Otherwise, the film is well-meaning yet slight, even with a runtime that is less than 100 minutes, and frankly, the film's habit of showing Golda always puffing away or near a full ashtray becomes unintentionally amusing, especially in the final scene which has her with an oxygen mask in one hand and a lit cigarette in the other. Still, it is fairly tautly handled and the leading performance is very fine, so it might be worth your time.

By the way, Lorna, the actress playing the homicidal daughter with the bad perm in "Reflections of the Mind" is Stacy Nelkin, who had some supporting roles in a few films of the early 80s. The most memorable film she was in was 1980's Serial, a risque and amusing satire of bizarre California behavior such as orgies, religious cults, self-help groups, hippie ministers, and other such things. I saw it after kingrat reccomended it a while back. Its wild, with some of the bluest vocabulary of any film of the era, but its great fun, with an eager cast chomping at the bit to sock across every scene and landing every punchline She played a young grocery clerk who briefly was entangled with a married older man played by Martin Mull. The film also featured Tuesday Weld (always worth watching), Sally Kellerman, Nita Talbot, Bill Macy, Pamela Bellwood, Tom Smothers, and Christopher Lee as the head of a gay bikers group (one of the era's most off-the-wall casting calls in a comedy, maybe only topped by Klaus Kinski as a sex therapist with a necklace with the likeness of a male appendage on it in the woeful finale of Billy Wilder's otherwise illustrious career, Buddy Buddy (1981). Thank goodness that Kinski and Paula Prentiss actually managed to overcome that script and milk laughs out of it, because that script was so crushingly bad that the film's leads, Lemmon and Matthau could not wring a single laugh out of it).

[Hibi]

I'll catch it on a rerun. The other show was just an hr. so I'm sure this one goes into greater detail. Sometimes those 2 hr shows feel padded, but sometimes they are worth it for the additional info. What a family!

This one didn't seem too padded for the most part. There were so many nuts in this family involved
in so many crazy schemes that it kept things interesting. I haven't even looked at what's on ID tonight.
I'll check it out later.

That's good! Another camera night. I skipped it.

[Allhallowsday]

MACHETE (2010) I had seen this years ago, we're getting free movie channels and I laughed and laughed again. Intentionally bad is usually no good, but intentionally TASTELESS is no problem. Bad in every good way. Talk about a sh!t-eatin' grin...

[Andree]

That's good! Another camera night. I skipped it.

Me too. To me it sounds like the old Cops program.
I watched Spellbound, which I hadn't seen in quite a while.

[Hibi]

That's good! Another camera night. I skipped it.

Me too. To me it sounds like the old Cops program.
I watched Spellbound, which I hadn't seen in quite a while.

Yeah, I hadn't thought of that. I watched that too.