• What Did You Watch? 2024-12-25 (Wednesday)

    From Ian J. Ball@3:633/280.2 to All on Fri Dec 27 04:05:16 2024
    Christmas Day was partly a travel day for me, so we just watched
    football and movies:

    football - We didn't see the first game (Kansas City blew out the
    Steelers! yay!!), but we did see the second where the Ravens just
    absolutely *mauled* the Texans, who managed all of 2 points in the
    entire game on a defensive safety - the rest of the game, the Ravens
    offense just had their way with things.
    A couple of points: Netflix still hasn't perfected live
    broadcasting, though this wasn't a disaster like the Mike Tyson-Jake
    Paul fight was - but it seemed like they had sound syncing issues (this
    might have been partly on our end, but our experiment with a browser
    stream had the same issue, so I think it was a Netflix issue) and
    occasional visual artifacts. Also, Beyonce's halftime show seemed to go
    on forever (it seemed longer than a Superbowl halftime show!!) - while
    I've seen worse than this, my brother hated it! Ha!

    Movies:

    Land of Bad (Netflix) - I'm not sure how I had never heard of this 2024
    spec ops flick before, as apparently it did get a theatrical release in
    early 2024.
    Liam Hemsworth stars as an Air Force... go between(?) between a
    special ops team (Milo Ventimiglia, Luke Hemsworth, and Ricky Whittle)
    and the drone pilot/operator (Russell Crowe) - the team is on an op in
    the Philippines, while Crowe is on an air force base just outside of Las Vegas.
    As is usual, the op goes wrong when their rescue mission gets sidetracked/waylaid by terrorists striking their intended target. While
    Liam Hemsworth thinks the rest of his team is dead, Crowe has to use the
    drone to get Hemsworth safely to a helicopter pickup point.
    This was a pretty good spec ops flick, though I thought the ending
    was too "over-the-top Hollywood".

    Unfrosted (Netflix) - A very silly but very fun 2024 Netflix flick from
    Jerry Seinfeld about the "cereal wars" between Kellogg's and Post that
    led to the creation of Pop-Tarts (and the eventual failure of Post's
    rival "Country Squares" product) in the early 1960s.
    Hey, they get Jon Hamm and John Slattery from "Mad Men" to cameo!!
    This was, I'm sure, in no way historically accurate, but it was
    pretty amusing. It's nice to see that Seinfeld can put out something
    funny without Larry David.

    We then watched "Zoolander" which I haven't seen in quite few years.
    Still hilarious.


    What did you watch?


    --- MBSE BBS v1.0.8.4 (Linux-x86_64)
    * Origin: A noiseless patient Spider (3:633/280.2@fidonet)
  • From anim8rfsk@3:633/280.2 to All on Fri Dec 27 04:32:54 2024
    Ian J. Ball <ijball@mac.invalid> wrote:
    Christmas Day was partly a travel day for me, so we just watched
    football and movies:



    What did you watch?

    Hey, thanks for asking!

    Doctor Who Joy to the World (on the gray)

    Most entertaining episode yet with the new doctor.



    --
    The last thing I want to do is hurt you, but it is still on my list.

    --- MBSE BBS v1.0.8.4 (Linux-x86_64)
    * Origin: Easynews - www.easynews.com (3:633/280.2@fidonet)
  • From Arthur Lipscomb@3:633/280.2 to All on Fri Dec 27 05:10:13 2024
    On 12/26/2024 9:05 AM, Ian J. Ball wrote:
    Christmas Day was partly a travel day for me, so we just watched
    football and movies:

    football - We didn't see the first game (Kansas City blew out the
    Steelers! yay!!), but we did see the second where the Ravens just
    absolutely *mauled* the Texans, who managed all of 2 points in the
    entire game on a defensive safety - the rest of the game, the Ravens
    offense just had their way with things.

    I didn't see any football, but the family had some basketball game on.

    ˙˙ A couple of points: Netflix still hasn't perfected live
    broadcasting, though this wasn't a disaster like the Mike Tyson-Jake
    Paul fight was - but it seemed like they had sound syncing issues (this might have been partly on our end, but our experiment with a browser
    stream had the same issue, so I think it was a Netflix issue) and
    occasional visual artifacts. Also, Beyonce's halftime show seemed to go
    on forever (it seemed longer than a Superbowl halftime show!!) - while
    I've seen worse than this, my brother hated it! Ha!

    Movies:

    Land of Bad (Netflix) - I'm not sure how I had never heard of this 2024
    spec ops flick before, as apparently it did get a theatrical release in early 2024.
    ˙˙ Liam Hemsworth stars as an Air Force... go between(?) between a
    special ops team (Milo Ventimiglia, Luke Hemsworth, and Ricky Whittle)
    and the drone pilot/operator (Russell Crowe) - the team is on an op in
    the Philippines, while Crowe is on an air force base just outside of Las Vegas.
    ˙˙ As is usual, the op goes wrong when their rescue mission gets sidetracked/waylaid by terrorists striking their intended target. While
    Liam Hemsworth thinks the rest of his team is dead, Crowe has to use the drone to get Hemsworth safely to a helicopter pickup point.
    ˙˙ This was a pretty good spec ops flick, though I thought the ending
    was too "over-the-top Hollywood".


    I'm pretty sure I caught this in the theater, but I already forgot
    everything that happened.


    Unfrosted (Netflix) - A very silly but very fun 2024 Netflix flick from Jerry Seinfeld about the "cereal wars" between Kellogg's and Post that
    led to the creation of Pop-Tarts (and the eventual failure of Post's
    rival "Country Squares" product) in the early 1960s.
    ˙˙ Hey, they get Jon Hamm and John Slattery from "Mad Men" to cameo!!
    ˙˙ This was, I'm sure, in no way historically accurate, but it was
    pretty amusing. It's nice to see that Seinfeld can put out something
    funny without Larry David.


    This has been on and off my watch list. I like the general concept for
    the movie, but the previews I've seen have not been funny.

    We then watched "Zoolander" which I haven't seen in quite few years.
    Still hilarious.


    What did you watch?



    I watched:

    Bad Santa (blu-ray) 2003 comedy starring Billy Bob Thornton as a
    foul-mouthed Santa Claus who teams up with Tony Cox to rob department
    stores during Christmas. Mostly background noise with the director's commentary. But the movie still holds up very well.


    Bad Santa 2 (Showtime) 2016 sequel that picks up with more foul-mouthed criminal adventures with Billy Bob Thornton and Tony Cox this time being joined by Kathy Bates who plays Thornton's foul mouthed criminal mother.
    I recorded this a couple of years ago, making it the oldest movie on
    my DVR. I really wasn't in the mood to watch "Bad Santa" but at 2 years
    I didn't want to push my luck that this wouldn't self-delete. And on
    the plus side, the last time I watched this, several years ago, was
    edited for TV version. I don't know how I survived the edited version.


    Doctor Who (Disney+) - Joy to the World - The annual Christmas special.
    I'm not even going to try to summarize this one. But I did like the
    time manipulation tricks the Doctor was doing. Although, why in the
    world didn't he just go to UNIT for help?

    As an aside, I was thinking about maybe watching a few of the Who
    Christmas special episodes, but instead I've decided to finally crack
    open my blu-ray box set of new Who, and along with my old DVDs of
    classic Who, next year I'm going to a major rewatch starting with
    Classic Who going through new Who. I really started out with just a
    couple of episodes, but I just kept adding more and more episodes to the
    list, until I pretty much had them all listed; or at least the ones I
    own on disc. So, something for me to look forward to next year.


    The 12 Days of Christmas Eve (Lifetime) 2022 TV movie starring Kelsey
    Grammer as a business man who dies on Christmas Eve and meets Santa
    Claus who turns out to manage the afterlife. Santa agrees to send him
    back to Earth who a redo and find the true meaning of Christmas, but he
    keeps dying over and over sort of like Groundhog's Day. But every time
    Santa sends him back (up to 12 times) to keep trying to find the true
    meaning of Christmas. This was mostly background noise.


    What If...? (Disney+) "What If... Howard the Duck Got Hitched?" -
    Another not funny comedy episode. Howard he marries Darcy and she lays
    a magic egg. Now everyone in the galaxy wants their magic baby egg. I
    don't want to even think about how she pushed that egg out!




    --- MBSE BBS v1.0.8.4 (Linux-x86_64)
    * Origin: A noiseless patient Spider (3:633/280.2@fidonet)
  • From Arthur Lipscomb@3:633/280.2 to All on Fri Dec 27 05:20:07 2024
    On 12/26/2024 9:32 AM, anim8rfsk wrote:
    Ian J. Ball <ijball@mac.invalid> wrote:
    Christmas Day was partly a travel day for me, so we just watched
    football and movies:



    What did you watch?

    Hey, thanks for asking!

    Doctor Who Joy to the World (on the gray)

    Most entertaining episode yet with the new doctor.




    You may have liked this episode a lot more than I did. Or you're just
    being snarky. LOL

    So what was the evil plan and why couldn't they just use any old star?
    I think I generally followed what the bad guys were doing, but I didn't
    get *why* they needed to do it.

    --- MBSE BBS v1.0.8.4 (Linux-x86_64)
    * Origin: A noiseless patient Spider (3:633/280.2@fidonet)
  • From anim8rfsk@3:633/280.2 to All on Fri Dec 27 08:44:07 2024
    Arthur Lipscomb <arthur@alum.calberkeley.org> wrote:
    On 12/26/2024 9:05 AM, Ian J. Ball wrote:
    Christmas Day was partly a travel day for me, so we just watched
    football and movies:

    football - We didn't see the first game (Kansas City blew out the
    Steelers! yay!!), but we did see the second where the Ravens just
    absolutely *mauled* the Texans, who managed all of 2 points in the
    entire game on a defensive safety - the rest of the game, the Ravens
    offense just had their way with things.

    I didn't see any football, but the family had some basketball game on.

    ˙˙ A couple of points: Netflix still hasn't perfected live
    broadcasting, though this wasn't a disaster like the Mike Tyson-Jake
    Paul fight was - but it seemed like they had sound syncing issues (this
    might have been partly on our end, but our experiment with a browser
    stream had the same issue, so I think it was a Netflix issue) and
    occasional visual artifacts. Also, Beyonce's halftime show seemed to go
    on forever (it seemed longer than a Superbowl halftime show!!) - while
    I've seen worse than this, my brother hated it! Ha!

    Movies:

    Land of Bad (Netflix) - I'm not sure how I had never heard of this 2024
    spec ops flick before, as apparently it did get a theatrical release in
    early 2024.
    ˙˙ Liam Hemsworth stars as an Air Force... go between(?) between a
    special ops team (Milo Ventimiglia, Luke Hemsworth, and Ricky Whittle)
    and the drone pilot/operator (Russell Crowe) - the team is on an op in
    the Philippines, while Crowe is on an air force base just outside of Las
    Vegas.
    ˙˙ As is usual, the op goes wrong when their rescue mission gets
    sidetracked/waylaid by terrorists striking their intended target. While
    Liam Hemsworth thinks the rest of his team is dead, Crowe has to use the
    drone to get Hemsworth safely to a helicopter pickup point.
    ˙˙ This was a pretty good spec ops flick, though I thought the ending
    was too "over-the-top Hollywood".


    I'm pretty sure I caught this in the theater, but I already forgot everything that happened.


    Unfrosted (Netflix) - A very silly but very fun 2024 Netflix flick from
    Jerry Seinfeld about the "cereal wars" between Kellogg's and Post that
    led to the creation of Pop-Tarts (and the eventual failure of Post's
    rival "Country Squares" product) in the early 1960s.
    ˙˙ Hey, they get Jon Hamm and John Slattery from "Mad Men" to cameo!!
    ˙˙ This was, I'm sure, in no way historically accurate, but it was
    pretty amusing. It's nice to see that Seinfeld can put out something
    funny without Larry David.


    This has been on and off my watch list. I like the general concept for
    the movie, but the previews I've seen have not been funny.

    We then watched "Zoolander" which I haven't seen in quite few years.
    Still hilarious.


    What did you watch?



    I watched:

    Bad Santa (blu-ray) 2003 comedy starring Billy Bob Thornton as a foul-mouthed Santa Claus who teams up with Tony Cox to rob department
    stores during Christmas. Mostly background noise with the director's commentary. But the movie still holds up very well.


    Bad Santa 2 (Showtime) 2016 sequel that picks up with more foul-mouthed criminal adventures with Billy Bob Thornton and Tony Cox this time being joined by Kathy Bates who plays Thornton's foul mouthed criminal mother.
    I recorded this a couple of years ago, making it the oldest movie on
    my DVR. I really wasn't in the mood to watch "Bad Santa" but at 2 years
    I didn't want to push my luck that this wouldn't self-delete. And on
    the plus side, the last time I watched this, several years ago, was
    edited for TV version. I don't know how I survived the edited version.


    Doctor Who (Disney+) - Joy to the World - The annual Christmas special.
    I'm not even going to try to summarize this one. But I did like the
    time manipulation tricks the Doctor was doing. Although, why in the
    world didn't he just go to UNIT for help?

    Yeah, assuming he’s in 2024 …


    As an aside, I was thinking about maybe watching a few of the Who
    Christmas special episodes, but instead I've decided to finally crack
    open my blu-ray box set of new Who, and along with my old DVDs of
    classic Who, next year I'm going to a major rewatch starting with
    Classic Who going through new Who. I really started out with just a
    couple of episodes, but I just kept adding more and more episodes to the list, until I pretty much had them all listed; or at least the ones I
    own on disc. So, something for me to look forward to next year.


    The 12 Days of Christmas Eve (Lifetime) 2022 TV movie starring Kelsey Grammer as a business man who dies on Christmas Eve and meets Santa
    Claus who turns out to manage the afterlife. Santa agrees to send him
    back to Earth who a redo and find the true meaning of Christmas, but he keeps dying over and over sort of like Groundhog's Day. But every time Santa sends him back (up to 12 times) to keep trying to find the true meaning of Christmas. This was mostly background noise.


    What If...? (Disney+) "What If... Howard the Duck Got Hitched?" -
    Another not funny comedy episode. Howard he marries Darcy and she lays
    a magic egg. Now everyone in the galaxy wants their magic baby egg. I don't want to even think about how she pushed that egg out!


    I would be happy to describe it in excruciating detail if you want



    --
    The last thing I want to do is hurt you, but it is still on my list.

    --- MBSE BBS v1.0.8.4 (Linux-x86_64)
    * Origin: Easynews - www.easynews.com (3:633/280.2@fidonet)
  • From anim8rfsk@3:633/280.2 to All on Fri Dec 27 08:44:08 2024
    Arthur Lipscomb <arthur@alum.calberkeley.org> wrote:
    On 12/26/2024 9:32 AM, anim8rfsk wrote:
    Ian J. Ball <ijball@mac.invalid> wrote:
    Christmas Day was partly a travel day for me, so we just watched
    football and movies:



    What did you watch?

    Hey, thanks for asking!

    Doctor Who Joy to the World (on the gray)

    Most entertaining episode yet with the new doctor.




    You may have liked this episode a lot more than I did. Or you're just
    being snarky. LOL

    No, I was quite serious but then again it’s a pretty low bar.



    So what was the evil plan and why couldn't they just use any old star?
    I think I generally followed what the bad guys were doing, but I didn't
    get *why* they needed to do it.


    Yeah, the plan doesn’t pass the sniff test. Why does the star have to obliterate a population? Isn’t Earth going to be gone in 5000 years anyway? Why not just start the timer then since it doesn’t seem to matter how far
    in the future it is? Like you said why do they need a new star? Does
    somebody own all the old ones?

    --
    The last thing I want to do is hurt you, but it is still on my list.

    --- MBSE BBS v1.0.8.4 (Linux-x86_64)
    * Origin: Easynews - www.easynews.com (3:633/280.2@fidonet)
  • From Ian J. Ball@3:633/280.2 to All on Fri Dec 27 13:46:29 2024
    On 12/26/24 10:10 AM, Arthur Lipscomb wrote:

    On 12/26/2024 9:05 AM, Ian J. Ball wrote:
    Christmas Day was partly a travel day for me, so we just watched
    football and movies:

    football - We didn't see the first game (Kansas City blew out the
    Steelers! yay!!), but we did see the second where the Ravens just
    absolutely *mauled* the Texans, who managed all of 2 points in the
    entire game on a defensive safety - the rest of the game, the Ravens
    offense just had their way with things.

    I didn't see any football, but the family had some basketball game on.

    ˙˙˙ A couple of points: Netflix still hasn't perfected live
    broadcasting, though this wasn't a disaster like the Mike Tyson-Jake
    Paul fight was - but it seemed like they had sound syncing issues
    (this might have been partly on our end, but our experiment with a
    browser stream had the same issue, so I think it was a Netflix issue)
    and occasional visual artifacts. Also, Beyonce's halftime show seemed
    to go on forever (it seemed longer than a Superbowl halftime show!!) -
    while I've seen worse than this, my brother hated it! Ha!

    Movies:

    Unfrosted (Netflix) - A very silly but very fun 2024 Netflix flick
    from Jerry Seinfeld about the "cereal wars" between Kellogg's and Post
    that led to the creation of Pop-Tarts (and the eventual failure of
    Post's rival "Country Squares" product) in the early 1960s.
    ˙˙˙ Hey, they get Jon Hamm and John Slattery from "Mad Men" to cameo!!
    ˙˙˙ This was, I'm sure, in no way historically accurate, but it was
    pretty amusing. It's nice to see that Seinfeld can put out something
    funny without Larry David.

    This has been on and off my watch list.˙ I like the general concept for
    the movie, but the previews I've seen have not been funny.

    I would definitely recommend it if you are a fan of Seinfeld of being silly.

    We then watched "Zoolander" which I haven't seen in quite few years.
    Still hilarious.


    What did you watch?


    I watched:

    The 12 Days of Christmas Eve (Lifetime) 2022 TV movie starring Kelsey Grammer as a business man who dies on Christmas Eve and meets Santa
    Claus who turns out to manage the afterlife.˙ Santa agrees to send him
    back to Earth who a redo and find the true meaning of Christmas, but he keeps dying over and over sort of like Groundhog's Day.˙ But every time Santa sends him back (up to 12 times) to keep trying to find the true meaning of Christmas. This was mostly background noise.

    I think this is better than background noise. I'd give a closer look the
    next time your watch it...



    --- MBSE BBS v1.0.8.4 (Linux-x86_64)
    * Origin: A noiseless patient Spider (3:633/280.2@fidonet)