PODCAST: "Kingsman: The Secret Service" (2014) w/ SimonUK and Ryan

Watched:  02/08/2020
Format:  BluRay
Viewing:  First
Decade:  2010's

We take a break from Bond to look at a sort of surreal spy adventure, also from Jolly Olde England! It's "Kingsman", the 2014 action adventure with some exciting stuff, a decidedly hard-R rating, a dash of "Moonraker" and how to climb the social ladder in London through grit, street smarts, parkour, and a penchant for looking good in a suit! Plus, Samuel L. Jackson chewing the scenery in a role he's about 35 years too old to play.



Music:
Manners Maketh the Man - Henry Jackman & Matthew Margeson,  Kingsman: The Secret Service OST


SimonUK Playlist

In a Time of Virus: People are Terrible in a Crisis

I'm not going to lecture you on COVID-19/ the coronavirus.  You know what it is. 

The plan was not to return to work on Monday (it's Friday, for posterity's sake).  I'd received approval from higher-ups to show some caution and work from home until we had the all-clear.  In the morning as I readied for work, I was checking a news story about our local K-12 school district closing and telling people to deal with their situation, and half-way down the page it mentioned my employer, the University of Texas at Austin, was also closed. 

I checked the emergency page, and it said "all clear", but literally at the same time, my Slack channel for work started popping and I saw that, no, we were closed.  An email had come through and we weren't to come to campus today. 

Max Von Sydow Merges With The Infinite

Max Von Sydow has passed at the age of 90. 

How do you talk about someone like Von Sydow?  Who worked with Bergman, starred as Ming the Merciless and was in hundreds of roles of all shapes and sizes?  I'm not going to.  He was Von Sydow, and he's going to be one of those guys we understand on one level now, and in time will stand back in awe at the breadth and depth of what he did. 

PODCAST: "Xanadu" (1980) - Jamie's Cinema Classics Selection #1 (w/ Ryan)

Watched:  03/07/2020
Format:  Amazon Streaming
Viewing:  First
Decade:  1980's

It's the inaugural episode of Jamie's Cinema Classic Selections! If you liked Cats, we've got us some more movies to discuss.

For no reason in particular we decided to watch "Xanadu" (1980) and talk about it. It seems neither of us had ever seen it, and, honestly, we now have more questions than answers. Not a musical, not-not a musical, starring a legend of the silver screen in his swan song and an up-and-coming film siren in the movie that kept her off the big screen for decades - it's roller skating, disco, rock, big band, 40's and 80's, and more rollerskating! XANADU!



Music:
Magic - Olivia Newton John, Xanadu OST
Xanadu - Olivia Newton John, Xanadu OST


and just in case you missed it:

Trek Watch: "Picard" and "Star Trek: The Next Generation"

I am not a "Trekker" like I'd consider some of my friends.  I do not have a tattoo of the Enterprise on my forearm (hi, Stuart).  I do not know the names of episodes as chapter and verse.  I mostly only watched Star Trek (the Original Series) and Star Trek: The Next Generation.  And I quite liked both.

Y'all can go to bat for DS9, Voyager and Enterprise.  I'm aware they all have their plusses, but I didn't really watch them.  And I honestly mostly watched ST:TNG out of order in syndication after season 4 wrapped up (why our local channel showed them out of order when I was in college, I will never know, but I generally knew what season it was by which uniform they were wearing).

When Picard was coming on, I realized it'd been a while since I spent much time with ST:TNG.  In theory, I liked the show, and I'd watched bits here and there on BBC America during lunchbreaks when I worked from home, but I was genuinely not sure the show held up.  Further, I wasn't ready to wade through 22+ episodes per season of 7 seasons of TV (plus a few movies) to catch up and be ready for Picard.

Thus, I turned to Stuart, who gave me the following watch list: