Captain Harlock (1978) 1.33

A Lone Man's Charge

The Mazone fleet gets closer to Earth. It destroys all signs of humanity (spaceships, space stations, satellites) along the way. Captain Harlock and the crew of the Arcadia continue to look for Mayu, without success. Commander Kirute becomes convinced that the Mazone are real and that they are headed to Earth. He tries talking some sense into the Prime Minister but the PM is more interested in other things.

Commander Otawara, an old comrade of Kiruta, leaves Earth to battle the Mazone by himself. Otawara was kicked out of the military because he killed his wife. He was convinced she was a Mazone but no one believed him. The Arcadia hails Otawara as he is passing by. He gets a last chance to talk to an old friend, Masu Tsunajima, the cook on the Arcadia.

Doctor Who (1963) 19.04.X2

Grim Tales: Revisiting the Visitation (2013)

45 minutes

Mark Strickson takes Peter Davison, Janet Fielding, and Sarah Sutton around some of the locations where the Visitation was filmed. He asks them about their memories of working on this story and some of the people with whom they worked. Insterspersed with the friendly reminiscing are clips from interviews with a few other people who worked also on The Visitation.

The subjects they talked about included

• filming at Black Park and Tithecoat Manor
• who started the Great Fire?
• the Terileptil costume
• working with Michael Robbins and Peter Moffatt

NewsRadio 5.20

Freaky Friday

Dave revokes Max's breakroom privildges after he is caught taking his coworkers food. Mr. James and Matthew change jobs for a day. Beth freaks out and turns to Lisa for help when she finds out that the CD and Record Club is coming after her for the 300 times she got 19 CDs for 1 penny.

Thoughts

This was a good one, better than average. All three stories made me laugh.

They Drive by Night (1940)

They Drive by Night (1940)

starring George Raft, Ann Sheridan, Ida Lupino, Humphrey Bogart

directed by Raoul Walsh

95 minutes

Joe Fabrini (George Raft) and his brother Paul (Humphrey Bogart) are down on their luck independent truckers. They could work for Ed Carlsen (Alan Hale) who runs a big trucking company but they prefer to be their own bosses despite all the risks their line of work entails. It isn't until they get into accident and Paul loses his arm that Joe decides to accept a job working for Carlsen.

Lana Carlsen (Ida Lupino) has been carrying a torch for Joe for a number of years. She starts hitting on Joe once he starts working for her husband. Joe knows better than to cross that line because she is the boss's wife and because he has been seeing Cassie Hartley (Ann Sheridan). Lana gets fed up with her husband's heavy drinking and his lack of refinement. One night she kills him in such a way so as to make it look like suicide.

She asks Joe to take over Ed's role in the company. He agrees to it believing that it is just a business arrangement but Lana has other ideas.

The Front Page (1974)

The Front Page (1974)

starring Walter Matthau, Jack Lemmon, Susan Sarandon, Vincent Gardenia, Carol Burnett

directed by Billy Wilder

105 minutes

Earl Williams has been convicted of murdering a policeman and the city is getting ready to hang him, just before election day, when he escapes from police custody. Hildy Johnson (Jack Lemmon) is getting ready to quit his job at the Chicago Daily Examiner, get married, and move to Philadelphia when the movie begins. He tries to wiggle his way out of covering it but he finds himself smack in the middle of the Earl Williams story. 

Un Village Français 3.06

La java bleue

or The Blue Java

25 Oct 1941

Daniel finds out, from Madame Estabet, that Marcel stole the missing gun. He goes to Marcel and tries talking to him about it but Marcel refuses to listen. He takes his brother's warning seriously enough. He sees plain clothes policemen following him. He loses them. He tries warning his Communist comrades but they have moved up their time table and refuse to change their plans or lay low for a while.

Kurt has less than 24 hours before he gets shipped off to the Russian front. Lucienne doesn't know what to do. Kurt wants to see her that night but there is a celebration at the school that she has to help organize. She suspects that Beriot might have been the one to tell on Kurt.

Life Itself (2014)

Life Itself (2014)

starring Roger Ebert

directed by Steve James

120 minutes

This documentary is about the life of Roger Ebert. He died in 2013. There is a fair amount of footage from the last few months of his life. There is also a fair amount of archival footage in the movie. There are readings from Ebert's book of the same name in the documentary. The readings were done by a voice actor who sounded very much like Roger Ebert. It wasn't until after I finished watching the movie and was doing some research that I discovered that it wasn't Ebert himself reading from his book.

The documentary returns to Ebert's situation at the time the movie was being made, which is mostly footage from Ebert's hospital room, several times. There are lots of other topics covered: his childhood, his early years as a movie reviewer, his relationship with Gene Siskel, his marriage, his approach to writing about movies, the impact of his writing and of his TV show with Gene Siskel, and finally his death.