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Post by codystarbuck on Nov 16, 2023 22:55:20 GMT -5
Watching Godzilla (2019) again and I think this is only movie I’ve seen where Charles Dance is a pos. Watching Godzilla (2019) again and I think this is only yet another movie I’ve seen where Charles Dance is a pos. Fixed that for you. I didn't think he ever played anything but a sleazy, snobby, malicious asshat. And really, really well, by the way. Granted, the list below is only of movies and TV in which I've seen him (or heard he was in), but I have a feeling his heroic roles are few and far between. Maxim de Winter in "Rebecca" Tulkinghorn in "Bleak House" Ralph Nickleby in "Nicholas Nickleby" Nazi fifth columnist in "Foyle's War" Another Nazi sympathizer in "White Mischief" Judge who sentenced an innocent man to be executed in "And Then There Were None" Mountbatten in "The Crown" Stockbridge in "Gosford Park" A Brit SIS officer who tortures prisoners in "Michael Collins" Benedict in "Last Action Hero" Burgess in "The Sandman" That Lannister guy who ordered the gang-rape of a peasant girl in "Game of Thrones" Dance did play Ian Fleming, in the 1989 tv movie, Goldeneye, though, since Fleming was a racist and imperialist, and carried on a long affair with a married woman, before she was free to marry him, you can debate whether he played a good guy or bad guy. He also appears as one of the goons working for Kristatos, in For Your Eyes Only, though he had no lines. You see him in the sequence where Bond is attacked at a ski jump and subsequent ski chase. (He appears at 2:21, on the left of the group of thugs, with Michael Gothard, as Locque) Sadly, that clip also features Bill Conti's disco-esque (and badly out of date) action theme, which replaced the regular Bond theme....ugh! Some of Conti's music in it is quite good; but he was way behind the times with that one. ps. Goldeneye (1989) plays up more of the fantasy about Fleming, but not quite as badly as Spymaker, The Secret Life of Ian Fleming.
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Post by codystarbuck on Nov 16, 2023 23:02:55 GMT -5
pps Dominic Cooper, Howard Stark, himself, also played Fleming, in 2014.
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Post by driver1980 on Nov 17, 2023 4:32:08 GMT -5
First-world problem: banks forever closing branches in this country. That's not a "First-World Problem"; not insofar as that phrase referring to something trivial that we in the West moan about but is really of no consequence. The closure of high street banks has very real social consequences. It puts people out of work; it excludes and inconveniences lower income workers or the self-employed who need to pay their wages in at a branch; it massively inconveniences the elderly who may rely on local branches due to not being confident with online banking; it is a huge problem for those who don't drive (particularly if local public transport is not so good); and it impacts other high street businesses by removing a reason for people to go into town in the first place. It really is no small or trifling matter. You’re right, I was too wrapped up in my own high street and how the banking closures affected me. I’m not usually that self-absorbed. You’re spot on. About 2 years ago, my neighbour, who does not have online banking, couldn’t pay a cheque in as her branch of Santander had closed down. She told me that the only option open was a convoluted one: pay the cheque in at a post office, they would then put it in a specific envelope and mail it to Santander. She told me it took about seven working days to clear; had she been able to pay it into her bank, it’d have cleared within, what, 3-4 days? On my mobile app, you can cancel a direct debit or standing order, but there appears to be no way to cancel an annual recurring debit card payment, this is one of the situations that forced me to drive miles to a bank. So even us technological folk sometimes need a bank presence. I wonder, would the Post Office be able to one day set up an account facility akin to a bank account? If so, that might help some people.
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Post by driver1980 on Nov 17, 2023 4:37:44 GMT -5
Also, some people I have known are naive about what facilitates a bank can offer. A friend of mine thought you could pay money into any bank branch provided it was a UK bank. His branch of HSBC had closed down so he thought he could go into Lloyds and use his HSBC card to pay money in, but you can’t.
I believe most banks, if they have a LINK machine, allow you to take money out, so I will take money from my Santander account by using a Lloyds or LINK machine, but I can’t go into Lloyds and pay stuff into my Santander account.
Also, I remember a time where someone I know couldn’t get more than £500 out of an ATM, which he needed for a deposit and rent. Maybe that has changed, but I think £500 is the limit. Yet if you have an actual bank to go into, I think you can take out more than £500 from a cashier.
The media and others don’t seem to grasp that even in the digital age, there are still many things you need to do in person.
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Post by MWGallaher on Nov 17, 2023 13:38:11 GMT -5
Something jumped out at me when looking at the openings to a bunch of late 70's American tv shows...
Almost every one of them includes some grainy location footage, with a markedly different look than anything you'd see when you were watching the actual show taped on a soundstage. Stars of the show doing random things outside, establishing shots of whatever city the show was set in, and, way too often, shots of heavy traffic (?!). I wonder how this formulaic recipe came to dominate. I remember finding it somewhat off-putting to sit through footage that didn't match the program itself, or even disturbing when it showed unpleasant-looking places, but for some reason, it seems to have become almost obligatory. My first thought is that some very successful shows were doing it (Mary Tyler Moore, All In the Family) and so everybody else started doing it, just to suggest those hits subliminally, but this doesn't feel like a satisfying answer to me. It's almost like there was some professional interest at stake, or some legal or union requirement. Kind of like the old obligatory 2-page text stories in comics, maybe programs were able to tick off some important box by including some filmed content when the show itself was videotaped?
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Nov 17, 2023 14:23:53 GMT -5
Something jumped out at me when looking at the openings to a bunch of late 70's American tv shows... Almost every one of them includes some grainy location footage, with a markedly different look than anything you'd see when you were watching the actual show taped on a soundstage. Stars of the show doing random things outside, establishing shots of whatever city the show was set in, and, way too often, shots of heavy traffic (?!). I wonder how this formulaic recipe came to dominate. I remember finding it somewhat off-putting to sit through footage that didn't match the program itself, or even disturbing when it showed unpleasant-looking places, but for some reason, it seems to have become almost obligatory. My first thought is that some very successful shows were doing it (Mary Tyler Moore, All In the Family) and so everybody else started doing it, just to suggest those hits subliminally, but this doesn't feel like a satisfying answer to me. It's almost like there was some professional interest at stake, or some legal or union requirement. Kind of like the old obligatory 2-page text stories in comics, maybe programs were able to tick off some important box by including some filmed content when the show itself was videotaped? I don't think that there was any obligation for the openings to look like that. I think that it was simply a short-hand attempt to show that this very generic TV show is happening in somewhere different than the next generic TV show, because you're not going to be able to tell that from the actual content.
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Post by codystarbuck on Nov 17, 2023 22:03:01 GMT -5
A lot of those shows were set in specific locales and the outdoor footage was designed to establish that and suggest something other than a Hollywood studio . The Mary Tyler Moore Show and the Bob Newhart Show (both from MTM) did a lot to kind of establish that kind of idea, showing Mary in Minneapolis, with recognizable landmarks, and Bob in Chicago, riding the El and around downtown. What helped, in those circumstances, was that the stories and dialogue routinely referenced those cities, their sports teams and the like, to make it seem more real. It helped that Newhart was from Chicago, with his series, and could tell if they were trying to bluff it.
It was just the cliche of the time. If you look at 50s sitcoms, you see a lot of people being introduced by the front door, and the 60s had a lot of storytelling openings (Beverly Hillbillies, Green Acres, Gilligan's Island, The Brady Bunch). The Mary Tyler Moore Show and the Bob Newhart Show were massive hits, and everyone copies.
I was more struck with how many knockoffs you saw there, after some hit movie. You have Delta House, which followed on the success of Animal House, with some of the cast (not Belushi or Tim Matheson, though) and then Brothers & Sisters, Co-Ed Fever, etc. I recall generally liking Delta House and Brothers & Sisters, though the latter was more for the use of Roll Over Beethoven (though I prefer the ELO version). I also recall mostly liking Making It and David Naughton was pretty good, though they were swiping Saturday Night Fever stuff. Angie was actually successful, for a couple of seasons, but got shuffled around in the schedule, as I recall. Some of those I don't recall, at all.
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Post by berkley on Nov 17, 2023 23:57:31 GMT -5
I watched the first 7 or 8 minutes and so far the only show I even heard of was The Ropers, which I never liked much. This was before we got cable in our region so I shouldn't be surprised at knowing only one out how ever many that was, but I do feel surprised nonetheless. We saw a fair number of American shows before cable because they were shown on one or the other of our two channels, CBC and CTV, so I suppose I had the illusion that we had access to more than the small fraction we actually did.
The only one so far that I like the looks of is Highcliffe Manor, which I will try to watch one of these days. Nice intro, well-chosen music, and (after looking up the wiki entry) I find the show concept appealing.
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Post by EdoBosnar on Nov 18, 2023 4:49:26 GMT -5
Didn't watch the entire video, but in the past I've watched several "opening credits to '70s (or '80s) TV shows" videos and - tied to what both cody and berkley said - I was surprised at how many, most of them in fact, I did not recognize and never even knew existed. Before that, I thought I'd watched a lot of TV as a kid. Anyway, I did watch the first few minutes of this one, enough to see the "Hello, Larry" intro. That's one I do recall watching. It was interesting to me and my older siblings because it was set in nearby (to us) Portland, OR. But really, as noted above, except for the establishing shot of the downtown Portland skyline in the title sequence, it could have been set anywhere. As I recall, the show itself made little reference to anything going on in Portland or northern Oregon at the time.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 18, 2023 13:46:06 GMT -5
Speaking of opening shots for TV shows, one of them became a little personal for me later in life. Most folks probably know (or know of) the Jeffersons, and in the opening they show them moving to a high-rise apartment on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. When I moved back to NYC for a time as an adult with my wife, we lived on the 18th floor of a high-rise in that part of town. The windows of our apartment faced both the west and north. We found out when we were moving in that the high-rise directly across from us to the north (literally across the street) was the same high-rise they used for the show's opening (even though the rest of the show was shot out in California). My wife and I always joked we were "moving on up" lol.
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Post by Icctrombone on Nov 21, 2023 9:30:58 GMT -5
This Thursday is Thanksgiving. I'm thankful for all the things and the life I'm living. That said, I just had dental surgery yesterday and looks like I'm only eating mashed potatoes on the day.
Happy bird day everyone .
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Post by Calidore on Nov 21, 2023 10:19:41 GMT -5
This Thursday is Thanksgiving. I'm thankful for all the things and the life I'm living. That said, I just had dental surgery yesterday and looks like I'm only eating mashed potatoes on the day. Happy bird day everyone . Bummer, sympathy to you. Do you have a blender? I had surgery earlier this year that had me on pureed foods for a week (after two weeks of liquids), and I can attest that meatloaf, mac & cheese, and such taste exactly the same after being blenderized. If you like, you should be able to include sides like sweet potatoes, stuffing, cranberries, etc. that way.
And I've just been emailed the new Costco sales, which include the Blendjet 2 personal blender twin-pack that I bought (not on sale :-P) in advance of my surgery. They worked great! Just a thought.
Happy Thanksgiving to everyone as well!
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Post by Prince Hal on Nov 21, 2023 11:02:16 GMT -5
This Thursday is Thanksgiving. I'm thankful for all the things and the life I'm living. That said, I just had dental surgery yesterday and looks like I'm only eating mashed potatoes on the day. Happy bird day everyone . Sorry, but if it's any consolation at all, remember that mashed potatoes, with or without gravy, are Nature's perfect food. Be thankful that you are not restricted to the likes of Brussels sprouts, kale or cauliflower.
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Post by impulse on Nov 21, 2023 11:26:10 GMT -5
This Thursday is Thanksgiving. I'm thankful for all the things and the life I'm living. That said, I just had dental surgery yesterday and looks like I'm only eating mashed potatoes on the day. Happy bird day everyone . Sorry, but if it's any consolation at all, remember that mashed potatoes, with or without gravy, are Nature's perfect food. Be thankful that you are not restricted to the likes of Brussels sprouts, kale or cauliflower. Mashed cauliflower can be pretty damn tasty, too, and with enough butter and garlic nearly indistinguishable from the real deal. But with 50% more regularity!
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Post by EdoBosnar on Nov 21, 2023 11:36:42 GMT -5
(...) Be thankful that you are not restricted to the likes of Brussels sprouts, kale or cauliflower. I kind of like Brussels sprouts and kale. Only like cauliflower in one recipe, though.
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