I’m sorry to say that I don’t find most new movies and TV shows entertaining. They are, in a word, woke, and I don’t enjoy being lectured at. But the compulsion to pander to a mythical Modern Audience has created a phenomena that I think is fantastically entertaining: YouTube reviews of the crap being produced. These are no-holding-back hard-hitting and funny. The YouTube comments are also excellent. One of my morning routines is to punch up YouTube and see if any of my favorite reviewers have posted anything new. Then I’ll download it to a USB key and take it back to my cabin for the evening’s entertainment. For some reason I really dislike streaming. I very seldom watch video at my office. The last time I did was when the SpaceX Starship blew up because some things just have to be watched live.
I have four favorite reviewers. Their videos all have high production values. In order of popularity:
The Critical Drinker: 1.66M subscribers
https://www.youtube.com/@TheCriticalDrinker
The Drinker is occasionally mentioned here. He critically reviews previews, movies, and TV shows; has a series called “Why Modern Movies Suck”, and sometimes explains how he would re-edit a movie to make it suck less. He’s responsible for the memes “The Modern Audience” and “The Message”.
Nerdrotic: 739K subscribers:
https://www.youtube.com/@nerdrotic
While Nerdrotic does produce reviews he also has a focus on the difficulties and failings of the Entertainment Industrial Complex. He frequently displays quotes from industry news articles and then reads them out which makes his videos friendly to the vision impaired but personally I find a bit tedious. There’s nothing worse than a PowerPoint presentation where the presenter displays a slide of bullet points and then recites it word for word.
Disparu: 143K subscribers:
https://www.youtube.com/@disparutoo
Disparu is the most prolific of this set with new content every few days. He’s very quick to put out a review of the latest episode of something. He also editorializes on the EIC with an interesting focus on the morality of the woke phenomenon. Although highly edited, his non-stop oratory would make good print articles. Sometimes he’s a little repetitious.
The Little Platoon: 130K subscribers:
https://www.youtube.com/@TheLittlePlatoon
The Little Platoon is the least prolific of this set sometimes with weeks going by without anything new. His reviews also tend to be long. At the time of this writing his latest is a two hour dissection of the first half of the third series of “The Mandalorian”. I’m eagerly awaiting his analysis of the second half.
These guys and others sometimes get together for live streaming discussions that last for hours. I don’t have the patience for stuff that long but I bet the interactions are a hoot.
I don’t recall that I’ve had an article scheduled for Monday evening before. Monday is usually Video Night at Richard’s cabin because of the stuff broadcast over the weekend. This evening’s entertainment was the latest from Disparu and Nerdrotic and would have included the Formula 1 race had Man-made Global Warming not flooded it out. Damn those Men!
This evening’s entertainment would also have included the latest episode of “Have I Got News For You” but unusually I went into town Saturday and downloaded it then. Despite its increasingly leftist slant HIGNFY is still very funny, IMHO.
I’ve been watching lots of episodes of Countdown as well as old movies
I’ve never watched Countdown. I’ve been tempted because one show I like is “8 out of 10 Cats” and it seems they do more productions of “8oo10C does Countdown” than plain “8oo10C”. I’ve read it’s because “8oo10C” is topical and therefore more expensive to produce.
So, are you a fan of Jimmy, and his braying laugh?
Yes! I actually think his braying laugh is conveying an actual response to humor. I think he’s particularly good when on “QI”.
I have been watching an old Rainer Werner Fassbinder mini series from the eighties, based on Doblin’s Berlin Alexanderplatz. Very… different.
Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s controversial, fifteen-hour BERLIN ALEXANDERPLATZ, based on Alfred Döblin’s great modernist novel, was the crowning achievement of a prolific director who, at age thirty-four, had already made over thirty films. Fassbinder’s immersive epic follows the hulking, childlike ex-convict Franz Biberkopf (Günter Lamprecht) as he attempts to “become an honest soul” amid the corrosive urban landscape of Weimar-era Germany. With equal parts cynicism and humanity, Fassbinder details a mammoth portrait of a common man struggling to survive in a viciously uncommon time.
The Drinker is a national treasure. Just not our nation. While not exactly the same, I do really like Pitch Meeting.
The Drinker pitched his own production to his audience, asked for L20K, and got over L300K. I don’t think it’s out yet but I’m really looking forward to it.
(I’m sorry but I don’t know how to do a British Pound symbol.)
Duh. Link:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1000347150/rogue-elements-a-ryan-drake-short-film
Modern TV has gone downhill. Each successive generation has gotten worse. I struggle to find newer movies for Thursdays.
Nude Nuns With Big Guns is on Tubi.
“Breaking Barbi”
And
“Star Slammer” are also there. Triple Feature?
Star 80 is worth watching if you haven’t seen it.
That feature has a pair of 45’s on her. Both loaded, both smoking.
Fortunately there’s an endless supply of decent older material out there.
Why struggle?
I like the Drinker.
Me too, and the accent adds gravitas.
A vignette from Richard’s cabin:
Sunday I went out and discovered a deposit of animal poo between the cabin and the shed which is a high traffic area. I’m sorry to say that I’ve been neglecting my scatological studies so I wasn’t able to tell the kind of animal that so kindly left it. I’m guessing a raccoon. I did impress upon myself the need not to tread on it. Of course I only discovered I’d completely forgotten when I discovered smelly tracks on the cabin’s carpets.
Get Forensic Files on the case, stat!
In a box labeled “Trail Cameras” is my collection of trail cameras. My cabin has no windows[1] so I have no idea what the wildlife is up to once I close the door. Setting them up again one of those things I only think about when I’m at the office.
Footnotes:
[1] The cabin does have a pair of skylights. Unlike some people here I’m not a Vampire.
That’s a shitty situation…
Call me Chato
I love Paul Chato. He’s my 2nd behind the Drinker. But Paul is way more vocal about cussing out the entertainment biz.
The linked video is one of his better rants of late.
I can’t watch the YouTube video here at my cabin, I’ll download it tomorrow, but the comments are excellent.
The “former network executive” can be damn funny.
https://www.youtube.com/@FreedomToons
Seamus Coughlin. Excellent satirical cartoons about current events, from a libertarian/conservative perspective. He also does Common Sense Soapbox, which is less satirical.
https://www.youtube.com/@CommonSenseSoapbox
The titles of his most recent cartoons are like a libertarian catalog:
– When “Trusting the Experts” Goes Wrong
– How to Survive a Bank Collapse
– How Congress Conspired with Twitter to Censor YOU
– Social Media Makes You Hate Everyone
“Social Media Makes You Hate Everyone”
I hated everyone before it was cool
Of new stuff I like
“What We Do in the Shadows”
“Resident Alien”
“Cunk on Earth”
Saturday night after we talked about in the Zoom both about the Preakness Stakes and about gambling in other formats, I decided to indulge my nostalgia and watch “Let it Ride”, a 1989 comedy absolutely carried by Richard Dreyfus and Teri Garr. Other fun appearances by Robbie Coltrane, Jennifer Tilly’s cleavage, etc.
It has dismal critical reviews and lost money at the box office. But I like the movie and have never seen one quite like it. Several funny moments still occur to me in the course of everyday life. It’s only 90 minutes long. I think it’s well worth watching. So I never know what to make of “the critics”.
I do know that no one ever put up a statue of w critic.
I’m just now watching “Cunk on Earth”! I have the last episode to go and if this article wasn’t published for this evening I’d be watching it right now. I also downloaded an earlier series “Cunk on Britain” because one of the episodes has her interviewing Neal Oliver who is one of my favorite historical/archeological presenters. I read he took the interview with good grace.
(a spell correct funny)
I don’t know why but I originally mistyped “Cunk on Britain”. I don’t know why because ‘k’ and ‘t’ are different hands. I only noticed when one name was underlined by Firefox as misspelled and the other not.
In the Youtube age, watching the critics is more entertaining than watching the “artists.” While that is certainly a sad indictment of modern culture, the Youtubers are trading in authenticity and comedy.
My mom loved horses, and growing up she practically lived at our local racetrack back in Spokane (Playfair, long since closed now). My dad used to gamble there (and on the dogs at Greyhound Park in Idaho before they outlawed dog racing), and his then-brother-in-law had a horse (he was subsequently banned for life after racing the horse with cocaine in its system…). They both fucking LOVED Let It Ride, and insisted you’d probably have to have been a track junkie to fully appreciate it. “He pissed it all away!” was a family punchline until they both died. Hilarious flick.
I liked the slightly supernatural events that surrounded Trotter’s ONE day of good luck.
Like how he’d have an internal dialogue calculating how much money the various service providers and grifters would make in tips over the day and I then the guy he was thinking about would say “Yeah, for being big.” Like somehow there was a flash of telepathy. And the horse winking.
And how the rich folks in the Jockey Club were no better, and actually worse than Trotter’s poorer, unluckier friends.
Lots of human foibles and redemption there.
I agree it helps to have been to the track a few times to “get “ it.
Some of my favorite movies were box-office bombs. And yeah, they’re usually pretty unique.
Also in 1989 was one of those, “Miracle Mile”. Possibly the last Soviet-era doomsday film. I love it so much I finally tracked down the soundtrack which was never released until recently.
Seems to happen more often with comedies, for me. I’m fairly certain I’m the only person to ever live who liked Drowning Mona. I’ve made a few Death To Smoochy converts, but I’ve never been met with anything but scorn and derision for that one.
Death to Smoochy was great. Drowning Mona was also pretty good.
“My stepdad isn’t mean / He’s just adjusting 🎵”
Loved it when it came out. Don’t think I’ve seen it since. I’ll have to rewatch it to see how it held up.
Jennifer Tilly’s cleavage
Yes.
Critical Drinker and friends examine Dove soap.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Apv1iP8eAjc
Today I had an interaction with Comcast Business regarding extending the cable from the room my office is in currently to the room, in the same building, to which I’m shortly moving. Other than the fact that the telephone audio connection sucked arranging an appointment with an installer for Thursday morning was easy. The weather is currently forecast to be be dry which is good because I’m hoping that that a happy installer will be more inclined to leave me with a couple of terminators and let me move the Internet cable modem from here to there myself and not insist that he do it that day which would mean some downtime on the part of my operations.
I don’t think there’s any ISP that isn’t regarded as being in league with Satan by someone but I’ve personally have had few complaints about Comcast’s Business services.
Frontier has been quite nice the past few years. Easy to work with.
In the 10 years I’ve lived at my current address I’ve had the same cable service and the company has changed hands 4 times. Thankfully I’ve only had to have a technician out once – to install the drop line when the service was initiated. I suspect once I move I’m going to be forced to use shitty rented equipment instead of my own modem, which pisses me off.
My office’s original cable Internet service was with the next-town’s-over small cable-TV company. They loved me because they could try out new stuff on me like “static IP addresses!” and knew that I knew what they were doing. Over a decade ago they were bought out by Comcast. I have no official contract with Comcast Business, my deal is a holdover from the old company, and I know that if I were to try to establish new business service now I’d be paying three times as much.
Thanks for the review of reviewers.
I know the Critical Drinker, but not the other ones so I’ll give them a try.
I agree with you Richard. I won’t sit through the two or three hours they do this. However, The Drinker chops these up into roughly 15 minute segments so if there is a segment you are interested in, then you can watch just the segment.
If you haven’t watched the old series “Victory at Sea” (1952) give it a try. A magnificent score and a series that tried to be a true documentary. The series is almost encyclopedic covering the naval war in all corners of the globe. Because of the tactical focus the lack of mention of the then still super duper classified ULTRA and MAGIC intelligence does not clash with the telling. Each episode is roughly 30 minutes long.
Warning the vets of WWII would watch on Sunday TV actual footage of Japanese soldiers being machine gunned in the water with their kids. (Note: not a war crime since they were armed and not shipwreck survivors. The same way you can shoot a paratrooper in the air, but must leave the pilot under a parachute alone.)
Another good series is “The World at War” released in 1973. (26 episodes 1 hr each). It covers the entire conflict with narration by Laurence Olivier. It mixes period footage and narration with a series of interviews with participants from the most common to the movers and shakers and leaders. The interviews are here alone since time has removed the interviewees from availability. Unlike the current productions there are no actors playing parts- what is seen is what was recorded at the time and the actual interviews.
Both series should be force watched, like in “A Clockwork Orange”, by those so casually calling for US participation in the RUS-UKR war or thinking that fighting the PRC will be like “tank plinking” the Iraqis.
My dad had about half that series on VHS, from back when he was going through his “you can fit 6 hours of video on a tape in EP mode, let’s record EVERYTHING!” phase. I loved watching it with him when I was a kid.
We did the same thing in 1986 before moving to West Germany. EP taping “Sesame Street” for the kids because we were told AFN didn’t have SS. When we arrived what we told was correct. A few months later the USG bowed to the mothers and started showing SS once a day- the same season we had taped. The young ones didn’t give a damn about video quality as long as they could see Cookie Monster.
Both were staples the local public tv station when I was a kid.
Hello from patch-land. I’m not sure if this thing is working but I haven’t sucked on a tube of sweet, sweet nicotine in a day and a half nor gone completely – just somewhat – crazy yet, so there’s that I guess.
Actually tried cold turkey but this morning was pretty rough so I thought I’d give the patch a try.
Well this presents the perfect excuse to link to one of the all-time best NewsRadio episodes (timestamped for relevance).
Heh saved for later. That show was so good – and I don’t remember this one. I appreciate nic-fit humor.
It’s crazy having lived through every side of this phenomenon – from working in my mom’s office in the 80’s and hating the cloud of smoke hanging in the air – my mom and her boss, the president, were the only smokers – to eventually joining the dark side and puffing up at most of my early jobs, to now don’t even think about it.
I’m at the point where I hate the dependency more than anything else.
LOL a memory… the president used to filch cigs out of my mom’s purse.
I’m guilty of some junkie behavior of my own in previous decades but yeah… nicotine really can make you its bitch.
You’ll like that one, after the office is statutorily made non-smoking, Foley’s Dave Nelson agrees to give up caffeine in solidarity with Hartman’s Bill McNeal giving up nicotine. Hilarity ensues. The patch (which back then was prescription-only) provides a major plot point.
Yeah I asked the pharma-bro if this shit was prescription – I had no idea. It’s not the first time my information is decades out of date.
Great show, hard to watch Andy Dick knowing how much of a uh, dick he is.
Aye. I never watch the final season where they brought in Jon Lovitz to replace Phil Hartman. The cast didn’t want to continue the series or keep working with Andy Dick after what happened, and it shows in every frame.
Crazy amount of talent in that show.
LOL hilarious.
I’m reminded of the “smoking lounge” at every airport I’ve been at in the last couple decades.
The one at CLE was especially sad.
Dad gave me a bit of advice one time:
“There are certain breeds of dogs that have to have their tails cut off. It doesn’t do you or the dog any favors to do it a little bit at a time.”
They day I quit smoking I threw my current cigarette out of the window followed by the remainder of the pack. I had a few rough days but I never looked back.
If I can do it anyone can do it.
The patch, the gum, all of it is just prolonging the misery. Chemical addiction is over in 48-72 hours. Reaching for a smoke when talking on the phone takes a bit longer.
Yeah, I’m hesitant about the patch for that reason.
I think? the point is to ease the fits while letting you deal with stuff like “reaching for a smoke”. It’s definitely two battles.
I’m very motivated so I think I will be successful.
One of my motivations is that I’m moving, into a “smoke-free” building. A notion that I would have scoffed at a decade or two ago but fuck it. I’m ready.
It took me 5-10 years, but I did it by gradually cutting back. No smoke on the way to work, became no smoke until my drivers were off, became no smoke until lunch. And so on. There was back sliding, but when I got down to one and it damn near made me puke, it was easy to stop and never look back.
Ha I tried that 30 years ago. Even wrote down a schedule. Didn’t work.
Good luck! My wife quit on and off but had been done for the past 6-7 years.
My uncle started around age 14 and quit cold turkey all at once in his mid 60s after he woke up in the middle of the night unable to breathe and nearly aspirated while frantically trying to force open his windpipe with his finger. It’s too bad he lived, couldn’t have happened to a nicer prick. Meanwhile my mom (his sister) dies of lung cancer at 59 having smoked from the ages of 18 to 26.
Gah, fuck cancer.
I smoke-smoked from 20 to 50. Vaping since.
Screw you guys, I’m going home.
Home? What is home?
Currently in hotel hot tub thinking about nightcap.
Good morning, you extremists.
Morning, measly moderate.
Good morning, Sean, U, homey, DEG, and somewhere upthread, Lack!
Little Black Cat has his dental surgery this afternoon, so I had to put their dry food dispenser out of reach when I got up this morning. Now LBC is sitting and staring at where the food used to be. 🙄🐱👤
*Sniffles* 😿
Well, there WILL be some nice, soft canned foot waiting for him when he gets home afterward. And some of the pureed treats he’s been getting after each of his recent vet trips. Maybe he’ll forgive me…some day.
Awe, poor kitty. Don’t turn your back until he’s recovered 😾
I may come home to find they’ve both eaten TT.
Nooooo!!!
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=sEXHeTcxQy4
Such a fun song. 🎶🎶
suh’ fam
whats goody
Mornin’ all. Off to the gym.
I see the VRE is offering free rides again. Something, something, making it up in volume. Fares are already down to about 15% of funding.
Helicopter rides?
Nothing left to cut.
Today is the last day of peace until school resumes in August.
That seems early.
School never let out before Flag Day.
Schools shifted a month earlier a few years ago. We had the year of the short summer.
Yeah, I don’t get the rationale. I’d have sworn the school year never started before Labor Day, but went until mid-June.
Oh, that sucks. It used to be Labor Day to Flag Day here too until recently.
Mornin’, Red.
Mornin’, TO’G!
It was similar when I went. Now it is mid August to end of May. Spring break is now always mid March instead of tied to Easter.
Things start earlier in the South.
That’s why God made summer camp.
It gets better. Youngest Patzer graduated Sunday, starts his internship next Tuesday and is about to discover the joys of commuting in the NYC metro. Then back to school in the fall to complete his Masters. I can see the empty nest atthe end of the tunnel. *sniffles*
“TikToker who entered stranger’s home defends videos amid calls for his arrest
Exclusive: ‘I’m a Black male doing these things and that’s why there’s such an uproar on the internet’”
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/tiktok-prankster-mizzy-stranger-home-video-b2343872.html#
He’s been arrested now. Just the huwhite man trying to keep a good Black man down. It’s in Britain though, maybe he can come over here and try that stuff-I’m sure he’d be very successful.
Prankster? They misspelled home invader.
And dognapper.
Dognapper? Did john Wick not get shown in the UK?
That person is a distillation of pretty much everything that is wrong in current year.
Are ASBOs still around?
Oh…
MORNIN ‘, REPROBATES!
Tradition MUST be upheld!
Good morning, ‘patzie!
Ruh-roh. I may need to rethink my vacation plans. This is much too close to Ocean City.
https://nypost.com/2023/05/22/teenager-surfing-in-new-jersey-suffers-injuries-from-possible-shark-attack-reports/
*rethinks*
Fuck it, you only live once. Probably a baby shark.
Even more reason to change your itinerary to avoid that damn song.
doo doo doo doo doo doo
Staaaaahp