2025 Rolling Streaming Media Thread

as someone reminded me on the youtube thread, 1929 movies are public domain and this Classic Film Library channel on YT has a ton of obscure titles:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b2T88am-BoA

A friend set up a watch party during lockdown, every Friday (now every first Friday) we WhatsApp and watch a film on YouTube - there's a list here - you should be able to get all of them still? Probably?
https://letterboxd.com/charmingpotato/tag/plague-film-club/films/

Presence on the list is very extremely not necessarily a recommendation, though if you haven't, it's worth seeing The Anderson Tapes inventing the 70s (and the nimbus around Christopher Walken even in his first feature film)

A friend set up a watch party during lockdown, every Friday (now every first Friday) we WhatsApp and watch a film on YouTube -

I did with this friends, too. We chatted over Slack. It lasted a few years but is basically done now (although we revived it to watch horror movies in October). Here's our list:

https://letterboxd.com/jaymc/tag/wmt/diary/

It was a great way to watch a lot of dumb-fun movies I'd never seen. If it was too serious and slowly paced, it killed the conversation. But movies with crazy visuals, fun needle drops, period fashion, chases and explosions, etc., were perfect.

haha, i wrote this on Facebook in 2022. i stand by it pretty much.

The 5 most popular themes in American entertainment today.

1) I am tired of being "good" and I am going to be "bad". I am the audience surrogate.
2) I am bored and/or disgusted with my job and/or my relationships. I will steal or kill. I am the audience surrogate.
3) I have been traumatized. I will kill. I am the audience surrogate.
4) I am mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore. I might need to kill. I am the audience surrogate.
5) I used to kill. I think I could probably remember how to kill again. I am the audience surrogate.

David Cronenberg's daughter, Caitlin, has a new movie up on Hulu called Humane. I might watch it. That's my kind of nepo baby. It's about the end of the world but it looks like its mostly confined to one house where people turn on each other. Which makes it less tempting, but maybe its good. Peter Gallagher. Jay Baruchel. ubiquitous television actor Enrico Colantoni.

i can't stop watching Chopped though...i'm so pitiful. it's my cold weather comfort food. what can i say? the format of that show was MADE for my brain.

i'm definitely going to watch Cuckoo tonight on Hulu. that movie looks awesome.

i loved cuckoo but a lot of ppl were split on it. i kinda think it's like no other movie i've ever seem. same goes for the director's previous film luz

Humane was kind of a horror-thriller, the other Cronenberg nepo baby's Possessor was more interesting (but also more directly "I learned it from watching you, dad").

I liked Possessor but the Cronenberg son’s first movie Antiviral suuuuucked. I think I lasted half an hour.

how was his last one? With it's infamous pool semen shot or whatever?

I finally watched the last Cronenberg and I enjoyed it but it did feel a bit like self-parody. Just so totally on the nose with all the very blatant Cronenberg schtick.

Best recent Cronenberg was his acting turn as an evil patriarch in one of the Slasher seasons.

I've now watched two episodes of Paradise on Hulu and if you are looking for a show that's deeply convinced of its own intelligence and seriousness while actually being pure boneheaded, goofy bullshit, oh man, get in here.

I enjoyed Cuckoo. Pretty crazy. That young actress was cool. Her reactions to things were cool. She was really trying to create a character. I liked her song too! I thought it was kinda crazy that the movie ends with a song from the Straight To Hell soundtrack. "Money, Guns, And Coffee" by Pray For Rain. I always liked that song on that soundtrack. How many movies end with an original track from another soundtrack? I would have to ask Quentin Tarantino.

i was trying to think of who the actress in Cuckoo reminded me of and this is when it pays to have a best friend from high school who thinks like you and who has one of the best horror movie websites on the internet. it was anne carlisle! from liquid sky. that's who she reminded me of. Cuckoo one of those movies where i liked it and didn't care that the plot made no sense to me. it didn't matter.

I watched The Juggler on TCM. A 1953 movie starring Kirk Douglas as a tortured Jewish Holocaust survivor who becomes a refugee in Israel. It's a nightmare! Produced by Stanley Kramer. Directed by Edward Dmytryk. Music by George Antheil. The first American movie ever made in Israel. It's pretty scary. It's Kirk's The Day the Clown Cried. It's weird and fascinating.

https://c8.alamy.com/comp/B81DJJ/the-juggler-year-1953-usa-kirk-douglas-director-edward-dmytryk-B81DJJ.jpg

noticed a couple of series on Amazon I'm pretty sure won't be good but make me curious, adaptations of Len Deighton's SS-GB and China Mieville's The City and The City

Two happy side-effects of watching *The Pitt*
1) now rewatching ER season 1. I watched it here & there when it was on & knew the characters but i never fully locked in on all the storylines so this one is kinda fun to go back to
2) I now am fully crushing on Noah Wyle. Never cared for him as a puppydog in ER or much else, but now he’s grown? DAMN :D

i love & admire ppl who are cool cucumbers in crisis (bcz i am NOT that)- my brother in law was a paramedic & later a captain in the fire department, and a lot of our family friends are higher ups in that EMT/Fire world as a result -
ppl in that world are often a bit broken somewhere inside but hand to god there’s nothing better in the world when you are In The Shit & they just calmly & quickly lock eyes w you and walk you thru what’s gonna happen & just shepherd you through the worst day of yr life
it’s a superpower & Grown Noah Wyle captures it beautifilly

The Librarians wasn't your kinda thing? Seems like it might have been.

i keep wanting to watch Supernatural for some dumb reason. there are like 50 seasons i think.

i forgot about Falling Skies! Noah's apocalypse show. can't remember if i ever finished it. it was okay.

i never watched The Librarians, it didnt grab me i guess?

yeah same here. but i know some people like it. or i guess it was movies first before it was a show. i could never tell if they were for little kids or not. but then i forgot about them.

Interesting thing about The Pitt - I keep hearing people in the medical industry say it’s one of the most realistic depictions they’ve seen. As an anecdotal background - an acquaintance of mine was a longtime actor/musician (he was the drummer of Rooney and has had small parts in shows and movies mostly in the 00s). He stopped those pursuits 5 or 6 years ago and became a full time EMT and then a nurse. So I’m watching The Pitt and… there he is, playing a nurse! So far he’s had one or two lines in every episode but because of the structure of the show, he is in every episode. But it definitely reinforces the authenticity angle!

oh wow that’s cool

yeah i listen to the Ringer’s Prestige TV podcast & they had an email from a listener who was an EMT doctor who said they never watch medical shows but that they watched The Pitt & said it made them cry & they were surprised by all the small details they got right - that was what made me think abt checking it out

My daughter has been taking nursing classes in advance of going to college for a nursing degree. We watched a few episodes together, she digs it but says it's reminding her of the times she has spent in hospitals, working and shadowing.

At the other end of the spectrum, I'm watching a bit of that Fire Aid broadcast right now. It's like one long giant epic super bowl halftime performance.

Like, they just had Anderson Paak and Sheila E backing Dr. Dre.

And now Joni Mitchell.

I just turned it on and watched a very off key Stephen Stills followed by an off key Graham Nash. Now a mostly insufferable Pink.

It all has the feeling of some of the worst Grammy broadcasts that just indulge every bluesy jam rock whim.

Rod Stewart! :D

idk i’m digging it mostly

i’m an easy mark for stuff like this

well.. until John Mayer
barf

First episode of Paradise was pretty enjoyable.

Certainly intriguing but no idea if it'll deliver on the set up

everyone on Chopped says that people think "out of the box" instead of "outside of the box" and i wonder if this is why i hear this in other places on t.v. now. Chopped changed the phrase! okay it might have just been societal osmosis.

"It's like one long giant epic super bowl halftime performance."

i watched a nirvana thing that was bad because all the singers were terrible but then i felt bad because it dawned on me that they were probably all from LA and it was just a nice thing to do even if it meant singing good songs badly. well, the first three. i didn't watch dave grohl's daughter sing. and no offense to joan jett who is quite obviously joan jett and it was kinda cool to see the producer of the Germs album singing with one of the Germs.

they did the same set 11 years ago because all the singers are from Cleveland

especially Lorde, who was replaced by Grohl's daughter yesterday

St. Vincent makes a pretty decent Kurt replacement IMO.

yeah! i would love to hear her do a full set w the band

otm it would be the best way to keep these 3 busy

my friend lance from kindertrauma dot com told me i really need to see Smile 2. who knew!? i didn't see the first one. but he really loves the sequel and i trust his judgement. creepy smiles do creep me out. that's why i didn't watch the first one.

his reviews of recent horror films are always interesting, I like getting the perspective of someone who loves older horror on current releases

its fun when he writes about old movies that we saw at the movies in the 80s or that we watched on VHS together. we saw so many movies later in philly in the late 80s and 90s too after i moved there from where we grew up. he says he still goes to the movies once a week in philly.

this is his year-end list:

https://www.kindertrauma.com/unks-year-of-horror-2024/

I seem to recall the first season of Night Agent was kinda dumb but still enjoyable. Two eps into the new season it’s definitely dumb but so far not very enjoyable.

smile 2 is great!!!!

Longlegs is on Prime at the moment. Didn't love it, though some stuff on the post-2005 horror thread is making me reconsider a few things. Loved the scene in the barn with the disinterring of the doll. Am going to be thinking about that for a while...