Amentep

Regarding Mission: Impossible - all the action stuff was never what Mission: Impossible was about, which this re-affirms my desire to never see any of the films. YMMV.

I'm good.

From what I've heard Robert was established as being away at boarding school during the childhood flashbacks in Picard. Which could make sense, as I seem to recall per TNG he was like 8 years older than Picard, if memory serves me.

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Seems like an odd promotion. I guess its an alternative to reading it for the articles, I guess. 😄 Also brings new meaning to that bean ad slogan where the guy says "Roll that beautiful bean footage!" ... ... I'll get me coat. ...and hope I don't make a typo anytime soon...

I refuse to watch any of the MI films due to the 1st Cruise film's attempt to **** on the original TV series.

Picard "The Impossible Box" and "Nepenthe" First episode was dull, and a good example of how the Soji storyline was treading water and adding nothing to the overall story. By the time we get here, we know how its going to play out, there's no surprise in the episode. I can't help but feel the story would have been better without the viewer knowing what to expect when Picard arrived; then having flashbacks to some (but not all of the scenes) when Hugh and Picard trace where she is. You'd have gotten everything you needed about Soji, Narek and Narissa without the repetitive scenes that plague the Soji stuff that made me say it was just doing time until Picard showed up. That said TIB was the fulcrum episode, now everything has turned and it feels like we're moving towards an end - even if Nepenthe could be seen as a bottle episode. We get some important pieces for Soji (more so than any of her cube scenes until Narek (intentionally?) fails to killer her) and some, I think, important bits for Picard (and seeing Riker and Troi is a lot of fun as well). Pity Hugh's part essentially wasted him; don't think he was used very well. Enterprise "Broken Bow" A wee bit on the 'have people bicker to bicker" side, but an enjoyable premiere episode. Most of the cast is given just enough to do that you have a grasp of who they are, except maybe Malcolm (we know that he's distracted by new and alien things, but it wasn't made completely clear in the episode that he was their weapons and presumably their security guy). I'd forgotten about the time travel stuff (or was my memory altered when the timeline changed? 🤔) but it makes me wonder if, with the presence of the Temporal Cold War if post Enterprise Trek could be considered its own time-line (as I speculated in Discovery's second season, that the whole Red Angel subplot could mean that Discovery and SNW are in a different time-line; Picard could go either way since its post three time-travel stories).

Full trailer now:

I kinda liked some of the ideas in the Tommyknockers, but it didn't really come together very well. Still I finished it which is more than I can say for some books. I actually only ever read the author's cut on The Stand. Someday I probably should try to read the original version.

Space Cobra - Episode XXI -"The Two Sword Kings" (Futari no Sōdo Ō) & Episode XXII - "The Underground Visitor" (Chitei no Kyaku) The Swordian 2 parter story was kind of lame, ultimately, and while the Underground Visitor had the makings of a better story, the fact that its only one episode makes the narrative turn on a dime (the biggest turn is Yuko's reveal which seems to have a pointless bait & switch over the course of about 2 seconds). Also whoever thought it was a good idea to have two back-to-back stories where Cobra fights opponents who travel underground? I'd have ditched the Swordians and split this story up into a two-parter (or combined it with the escape part of the Swordian story and made it a properly structured three parter with the first part being Cobra and Lady helping people escape the underground traveling Pirates instead of Swordians).

IIRC it was definitely that kind of scenario - I read it and can't remember if it was a deep fly out or what, but I think they had walked multiple people and had someone on third when the out was made. 55¢ is an odd price for a comic purporting to be from the 50s/60s (10¢, 12¢ or 25¢ (for Tower comics) was the range in the US - production, like the paper stock, was cheap). Also, I think US comics skipped to 60¢ from 40¢ in 1981/82. Its a nice mock-up (I could critique the faked wear and the modernity of the line work, but, eh its fun so why quibble?) There is, though, a long history of sports and US comics...

If people aren't going to believe the facts, presenting them with the facts isn't going to 'fix' the situation. That's different from 'institutions' supporting/spreading misinformation, but also if the entities are private then there's a free speech issue in the US if the government tries to curtail the speech.

I've neither read CUJO nor watched the movie. I read MISERY but never watched the movie because I'd already lived in that space more than I wanted to. One King adaption I was surprised I liked as much as I did was DOLORES CLAIBORNE (which I watched without having read the novel prior). One thing with respect to the violence in SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION is that the written word has the ability to offer a type of sketchy subtlety that can't be achieved in film that I think tends to make the violence more pronounced when translated into live action. I can't say I've identified with King's characters much. But if the plot hooks me, I'll still become invested in the outcome for the characters. IT is probably the one that I could identify with the best, probably because I read it when I was around the same age as the kids in the flashback part of the store to when they were kids, and I got the character types involved since I saw them at school everyday. I like both The Shining adaptions. There was a boom in decent-for-King-adaptions mini-series there for awhile that was a lot of fun. The Shining, Rose Red, Storm of the Century, The Stand, Desperation, etc. Then there was that lousy Salem's Lot adaption remake (yeah the original mini took a lot of liberties, but I'd argue it was good on its own terms while the Salem's Lot redo wasn't). Even the Langoliers with chewing-the-scenery-climbing-the-walls Bronson Pinchot was entertaining despite the terrible TV CGI and a thin plot (that worked much better as a short story as intended). Seems like a lot of King stuff is either too long to adapt properly for a movie, or too short and adapted as a multi-part miniseries. 😄 Speaking of short stories, I thought the ending of the film adaption of THE MIST was terrible. The short story had it right leaving the end ambiguous as to the fate of the characters, in my opinion. That whole adaption was wrong-headed from the start. Jackson inherited the work that had been done when Del Toro left though, and Del Toro was given, from the impression I have, an impossible mandate to make THE HOBBIT into another LORD OF THE RINGS, which necessitated a stronger through story as they wanted another trilogy, since structurally The Hobbit is kind of a travelogue in a fantasy land with episodic adventures. They also had to add a whole lot of character stuff that just isn't in the novel and the adaption just started wrong, because the desire wasn't to make the best adaption of The Hobbit they could.

Not even getting into good/bad, but if the problem is that people don't believe the message from the government, more message from the government isn't going to fix the problem.

I confess, I enjoy MAXIMUM OVERDRIVE even if I concede that King was probably correct in calling it a 'moron movie'. So I'm probably not the right person to ask. 😄 I've liked a lot of King adaptions to various degrees. Firestarter is big disappointment as I recall. I think the written versions are generally superior.

Okay... would you believe it was a good Richard Dawson film?

Or is it...? (That was more or less the thought that inspired King's The Dark Half) Yeah it was, but The Running Man movie was a good Schwarzenegger film. So even if it wasn't as good as the book, I still enjoyed it.

VGHF finds and interviews the woman who programmed the ATARI VCS game WABBIT for short lived, Texas based game company Apollo Games, and who later worked for MicroGraphic Image on an port of Solar Fox that never got released.

I really need to finish the series, I think I was over halfway through Fist of the Northstar whe life distracted me. I'd seen the movie years ago that was edited out of it, so wanted to see the whole thing.