I watched the first season on Amazon in January and enjoyed it a lot. Not enough to rush out and buy/subscribe, but enough to hope to see the rest at some point! Good to know it stays enjoyable.

Decided to stick with TCM for as long as I can... so I just watched three of "Bob's Picks" which mostly-broadly count here: Who Done It? (Abbott & Costello/crime), The Ritz (mob angle) and My Cousin Rachel (murder? mystery).

What an odd line-up.

The Ritz has to be one of the oddest films I've ever seen... enjoyably farcical but a decidedly strange story in a very curious setting!
A&C in Who Done It? wasn't bad, but there were at least a couple of points where the novelty wore off as they rehashed the same skit they're famous for. I haven't seen very many of their films (probably five), but in those few their range does not seem as wide as some other comics and comedians...
My Cousin Rachel was nicely open to interpretation. Sort of Wuthering Heights/Gaslight-lite, but with added ambiguity.

That was the earlier spectacular derailment.

Agreed!

The show has evolved over three seasons, of course, but still delivers the goods.

Got to see The Mermaid (2016) this afternoon. It was good.

I watched The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift last night. It was alright. The only actors in common with the others was a 20 sec cameo with Vin Diesel. Lots of cars, lots of racing. That's the point of the movie, after all. Not a big plot line and what there is is fairly standard fare, but watchable.

Thinking of watching Snowpiercer tonight if I have some time.

Broke 50 tonight, so making 100 for the month looks pretty good.

Just finished Snowpiercer and I have to admit, I'm not quite sure how I feel. I think it was well done, but that ending...and there were almost a few too many unanswered questions that just didn't make sense for me that makes me a little frustrated with it.

Design and action wise-it was impressive. The actors themselves were good as well.

If you're on the edge, watch it, but expect a few holes (not really plot holes, but more holes in the theory of this universe, if that makes sense.)

Hit and miss on viewings the last two days. Watched a dog of a film on Netflix today--Kiss of Death with Nicholas Cage, David Caruso, and Samuel L. Jackson. Just kinda flat and predictable. Cage does his best to lift some of the material he was given to work with but Caruso is boring as the lead. This is only 100 minutes but it feels longer especially the latter half of the film.

On the opposite side of the spectrum, I finally watched Once Upon a Time in the West. I'm not sure why I took so long to finally watch this (probably the long run time) but this was a great epic film. Great characters throughout this film. And I love the score here by Enncio Morricone.

I was looking on IMDB earlier today out of curiosity for eligible horror movies, and I discovered that there are quite a few horror movies that have either an action or a mystery tag on them under genre listings.

it is VERY long, and bits move at a snail's pace, too... but it's extremely well done, and the slow bits need to be slow.

Definitely up there with Around the World in 80 Days as 'long - but worth every minute'.

I doubt I wpuld hesitate in counting [most] horror films whatever anywhere says - action and adventure (and perhaps particularly mystery) are in-built aspects of (most) such films, I'd wager.

I started the The Lord Peter Wimsey Mysteries last night with the first of the teleplays, "Clouds of Witness" from 1972.

It's a early BBC production which has a rather archaic look and feel with the appearance of being produced live, at least with the studio portions, which brings its own foibles into play. It's been difficult to watch and fully appreciate as I just don't care for this production method. It takes me back to my college days studying/learning TV studio production techniques and how "stiff" and "dry" such productions seemed to be. Pacing and timing constantly feels "off" with regular bits of somewhat stilted dialog. Lots of effort is spent with "creative" camera moves, often featuring extended tracking shots of varying success. Lighting is overall rather poor on the indoor segments. The outdoor material is the usual 16mm BBC standard and, film stock notwithstanding, the better parts of the production. Still, the story is good. I just can't decide if it's good enough to overcome my issues with the production.

I never got around to watching that series. I did watch the latter '80s adaptation with Edward Petherbridge and liked it.

Earlier today, I watched the first episode of the 2004 Astro Boy cartoon on Hulu. I grew up on the 80s version, so wasn't expecting much, but I was actually pleasantly surprised. While the reboot was different than the version I knew, it was still a good cartoon, from what I could see.

Yesterday, I watched two dissimilar films that shared one feature: thoroughly dislikable protagonists.

The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift is an enjoyable mess. After the lackluster second film, the action shifts to Japan (an inspired move that elevates the series' tone), gets a new director (who injects the action scenes with sleek mania), and gets a new leading man (who brings the whole thing toppling down). While Lucas Black's high schooler character is a charisma-suck, the film does add Sung Kang as Han, a laconic bad guy who spouts homespun philosophy like Vin Diesel.

The Big Knife is also an enjoyable mess. I'm counting the film because it's considered to be a film noir. However, when you strip away the veneer of noir style, you're left with a flamboyant melodrama that takes place in one living room. Jack Palance stars as a poor movie star who sold his soul to an unscrupulous producer to escape prison time. His wife (Ida Lupino) and all of his associates have been twisted into overacting depressives by a relentlessly evil studio system. Everyone claws over each other to reach the scenery and commence the chewing - even before Shelley Winters shows up as the disillusioned woman who has to been dispensed with.

When I read this I realized that I had picked this up a while back but hadn't watched it yet. I took care of that over the weekend and I agree with you 100%. It was hand animated and took seven years to complete and was a wild ride from start to finish.

I also experienced a nice bit of serendipity yesterday while continuing my journey through the Charlie Chan films. Last week I watched the last Warner Oland Chan, Charlie Chan at Monte Carlo, so this week I was ready for Sydney Toler's first Chan movie, Charlie Chan in Honolulu. For some reason I felt like a double feature so I also picked out the next Mr. Moto film to watch, Mr. Moto's Gamble. I was surprised to find that Keye Luke played Chan's Number One Son in the Mr. Moto film! I was stunned by this crossover event - Lee Chan even mentioned getting a letter from "Pop" and Moto gave Charlie some high praise. It turns out that the script from the film that Warner Oland walked out on after just a few days of shooting (Charlie Chan at the Ringside) became this Mr. Moto movie with very few changes. Even while watching it I thought it was quite different from the other Moto films I had seen, much more like a Charlie Chan movie. The featurettes that come with the three movies do a good job of explaining why Oland left and how Fox reacted to it and with very little overlap. I love it when things like this come together.

I watched Hitman: Agent 47 tonight. I really enjoyed it. I liked it better than the first one. I liked the story line and of course all of the action scenes.

Oh, yes, I need to watch those too. Aren't there a couple of different versions..? I'll have to hunt out my discs - I have a feeling I have three sets... I should probably put thm near my 15+ books.

Hmm.... "probably", I'd say!

Excellent! I keep having people pop up in unexpected places too - yesterday it was Paul Lukas starring (alongside Kirk Doiglas, James Mason, and how-could-I-have-forgotten-he-was-in-it Peter Lorre) in 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. I'd had no idea who he was until a week or so ago when I watched Watch on the Rhine with him and Bette Davis.

There was something else the other day that struck me as serendipitous casting/watching.. forgot what, though.

Although I did follow a weird and fascinating train of thought/links and discovered a whole lot of new-to-me facts in a strange sequence..

I was talking over film genres with a friend, and thought I'd raise the discussion/query here, too. We were wondering about genre separations, and specifically trying to decide whether it was possible (with examples) to have a film that could be reasonably called "action" but not "adventure". (probably, we thought, many 'mindless' action films could be said to more set pieces than adventures - and even well-plotted ones could be small in scope)

Then, whether there are "adventure" films without "action" (maybe some 'Dramatic' adventure without fights or death..?) and if there were examples of "mysteries" that were "crime"-less, just as - we suggested - several/many gangster films could reasonably be termed "crime" while lacking in "mystery".

Any takers?!

Fog Over Frisco has a geat ending! The villain takes a shot at the Police Chief, then...

Beats me... I know there have been several releases of the 5 mini-series with Ian Carmichael starring as Lord Peter Wimsey. The first was each in a 2 disc set with a complete collection of 10 discs. Then there were 2 "sets" with 2 minis in the first 3 disc set and 3 minis in the second 3 disc set (that's what I have). Those were then released as a complete collection of 6 discs (same as the sets).

I've never read any of Sayers books or stories, but to be fair, I've not read any of Christie's work either. I enjoy watching mysteries but I've not read any (I read almost exclusively SF and Fantasy). My wife is the mystery reader in my house and has read almost everything those two ladies have had published.

That first adventure was OK... but the production really got in the way of the story. The second,"The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club." had much better production as less attention was paid to being "artsy" with camera/production techniques. There are still occasional lighting issues and the occasional shot that looks like it was done for "art's sake" but overall it was better staged. The roster of support players were more up to the task in that second production as well. I felt like many in that first teleplay were old stage actors who were being tested for transition to television but really didn't have a clue as to how to pull it off.

Action without adventure, sure--crime stuff.

Adventure without action, a little tougher--maybe a fantasy like Totoro?

Mystery without crime--it seems like they're all crime-related. Maybe some kind of archaeological puzzler?

I have to say that after watching the trailer for Captain America: Civil War, I can't wait to see the movie.