Monday, November 13, 2023

Moonlighting 1.03

Read the Mind -- See the Movie

David and Maddie have been hired by SRT, a company that is developing a weapon for the US military. They get fired after a test goes horribly wrong. David is ready to move on but Maddie, who found the work, insists that they figure out what went wrong.

She has dinner with the president of SRT's number one competitor. She asks him how he found out what SRT was developing. He tells them he found out from a psychic. Maddie and David visit the psychic. David steals the psychic's appointment book which reveals that Brian, the current head of SRT, has been visiting the psychic.

David and Maddie return that night and stake out the psychic's home. They learn that night that the psychic has been helping Brian to convince his aging father, who owns SRT, that Vivian, Brian's sister, is incapable of running SRT.

Maddie and David are spotted while surveilling the house. They flee by undressing and jumping into the pool. Later that night they get a call from Vivian. She asks them to meet her at SRT. She tries to kill them with a laser gun but ends up bringing down a piece of the ceiling on herself.

Sunday, November 12, 2023

The Seventh Seal (1957)

The Seventh Seal (1957)

starring Max von Sydow
directed by Ingmar Bergman

96 minutes
Swedish with English subtitles

Antonius Block, a knight, and Jof, his squire, return from the Crusades and discover how the plague, the Black Death, has changed the land they left ten years before. The knight meets Death but he is not ready to go just yet. He challenges death to a game of chess.

Block and Jof are traveling back to Block's castle. Along the way they collect a few people who travel with them (an actor, an actress, and their child; a blacksmith and his wife; a teenage girl whom Jof saves from a predatory priest). They also cross paths with a young woman who has been accused of being a witch and is to be sacrificed for causing the plague, as her captors put it. 

Block encounters Death more than once. Each time they meet their game gets a little closer to ending. 

Saturday, November 11, 2023

Alfred Hitchcock Presents 1.20

And So Died Riabouchinska

Police Detective Krovitch (Charles Bronson) investigates a murder at a vaudeville theater. The prime suspect is John Fabian (Claude Rains), a ventriloquist, who has an odd relationship with his dummy.

Thoughts

I watched this one our of curiosity. I wasn't won over by it. Bronson's acting left something to be desired. Rains was a little better but the script didn't give them a lot to work with. The twist at the end of the story wasn't exactly what I was expecting but it also felt like a bit of a reach.

Friday, November 10, 2023

Our Hospitality (1923)

Our Hospitality (1923)

starring Buster Keaton, Joe Roberts, Natalie Talmadge
directed by Buster Keaton, John G. Blystone

74 minutes
Silent

Willie McKay (Buster Keaton) travels back to his parents hometown with full knowledge of what might await him there. His father was killed by the Canfields, a rival family, when Willie was just an infant. Willie meets Virginia Canfield on his way back to his ancestral hometown. It isn't until later, after he is smitten by her, that he discovers who her father is and that he and her brothers want to kill him.

Virginia invites Willie over for dinner. Joseph Canfield (Joe Roberts) wants to kill him but insists that as long as he is a guest in their house neither he nor his two adults sons will attempt to kill or bring any harm to Willie.

Why Be Good? (1929)

Why Be Good? (1929)

starring Collen Moore, Neil Hamilton
directed by William A. Seiter

84 minutes
Silent

Pert Kelly (Colleen Moore) meets Winthrop Peabody, Jr. (Neil Hamilton) while they are both out partying. She has just won a dance competition. He is the one who handed her the prize. He is celebrating one last time before starting a new job at his father's department store. They have a great time together make plans to meet again the next night.

She gets in late, oversleeps the next morning, and gets to work late the next morning. She is sent to the manager in charge of tardiness only to discover that it is Winthrop. He is hesitant to fire her for showing up late but then his father does. It takes some convincing, and some gifts but Winthrop wins Pert back.

She loves the gifts, mostly clothes. She comes from a less privledged background than he does. Her father balks at the way she is being showered with gifts. She fights back. Her mother steps in on Pert's side of the argument and her father relents.

Winthrop invites her out again. This time he decides to test her to see how far she is willing to go for him. He wants to know if she can be bought. He almost loses her again.

Orange Is the New Black 6.11

Well This Took a Dark Turn

Hopper shows Aleida what he found, the drugs he had him unknowingly smuggling in to Litchfield. He's had enough of her act. She's had enough of his and goes stomping out of his home.

Chapman continues to lead the practice sessions for the kickball team. Baddison gets more and more annoyed with her and tries to frame her by planting drugs in one of her shoes but Chapman gets lucky and evades detection during a search by the COs.

Suzanne and Doggett team up to try and figure out who is trying to kill Berlin. They overlook one of the inmates they question but something they say clicks with Berlin. She confronts the other inmate and then frames the other inmate for trying to kill her.

Thursday, November 9, 2023

Doctor Who (1963) 15.05.01

Underworld - Part One

The TARDIS avoids getting sucked into a space nebula by teleporting onto the nearest spaceship. It is a Minyan spacecraft and has been traveling throughout the universe for 100,000 years. The four remaining crew members are searching for the P7E, a spacecraft which carries the only hope for their rebirth of their people.

The Minyans (Jackson, Herrick, Orfe, Tala) react negatively when they discover that they have crossed paths with a Time Lord. They have some knowledge of the Time Lords whom they refer to as gods. They use a pacifying ray on Leela when she threatens to shoot them with a weapon (Liebemann laser) she found in the store room in which the TARDIS materialised.

The spaceship starts to veer into the nebula. The Doctor offers to help. He hooks K-9 up to the ships computer and K-9 gets the spaceship to veer away from the nebula.

Jackson has the ship change course when they pick up the signal of the P7E coming from within the nebula. The Doctor tries to convince Jackson to not head back into the nebula but the captain won't listen. The ship is quickly surrounded by smaller bits of debris which cling to the hull. The thickness of the debris increases quite quickly. Herrick tries firing the ship's main gun but it doesn't seem to do any good.