PRIMITIVE SCREWHEADS

Wellington Paranormal Season 1

Wellington Paranormal Season 1 Created by Jemaine Clement and Taika Waititi. They both wrote on the series along with Paul Yates, Sam Smith and an uncredited Taika Waititi, directing was done by Jemaine Clement and Jackie van Beek.

That's the cast, left to right it's Thomas Sainsbury as Constable Parker, Maaka Pohatu as Sergeant Maaka, Mike Minogue as Officer Minogue and Karen O'Leary as Officer O'Leary. The first season has 6 episodes and they aired in July and August 2018. There are three more seasons to go.

O'Leary and Minogue are partners and Sergeant Maaka is their boss. Maaka has a secret paranormal office in the station, he invites O'Leary and Minogue to join him in the fight against the supernatural. It's thick in Wellington. Constable Parker isn't part of the paranormal group but he soon learns of it's existence and suffers for it.

It's a monster of the week show, we got demons, crop circles, a party ghost in a haunted house, a werewolf couple, a vampire and some zombies. The makeup is quite good most of the time, same for CGI. It's got plenty of gags and goo. I laughed a bunch. I'm already looking forward to season 2.

Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets Of Dumbledore 2022

Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets Of Dumbledore 2022 Based on a screenplay by J K Rowling, screenplay by J K Rowling and Steve Kloves, directed by David Yates.

I picked up the Blu-ray at Target today, not something I'm prone to do very often with new releases. I watched it when I got home and enjoyed it. There's plenty of magical business and Mads Mikkelsen does a great job replacing Johnny Depp as Gellert Grindelwald. The rest of the cast does a great job.

The story is complex and there are plenty of characters to follow as they go about their business. The film jumps around the planet and there's lots of nice scenery, most of it not real. The CGI is fine and so are the costumes and props.

I was happy to finally see it. Looking forward to the next two. We're still waiting to hear if the film made enough money for the other two to get green lite. This was the worse preforming of the films in the HP series, a $4050 mil return on $200 mil spent to get it to the screen.

The Vast Of Night 2019

The Vast Of Night 2019 Written by James Montague and Craig W Sanger, directed by Andrew Peterson. James Montague is a pseudonym for Andrew Peterson. Andrew started his own film company in Oklahoma and made commercials and corporate media. He financed this film on his own to the tune of $700,000. It won an award at Slamdance Film Festival and was picked up by Amazon Studios. I watched in on Amazon Prime. It's in the free section.

Fay's a 16 year old switchboard operator, she hears a weird noise over her radio while her friend Everett is doing his show. She calls him to let him know what's happening, he plays the sound over the radio, looking for anyone who might know what it was. A man called Billy calls in and tells a story about his days in the military. Billy was assigned to a project out in the desert with a bunch of other men he did not know, the men dig a big hole which something large is buried in, the men are sent home and told it was a big secret. On the flight back Billy hears that sound over the radio.

The story goes on for a long time as more and more bits of info are revealed. It's got a good bit of suspense and an interesting story. It keep me interested to the end. I would watch it again. I gave it a 7 on the IMDb.

Re-Elected 2020

Re-Elected 2020 Written by Eric Looney and Max Radbill, directed by Max Radbill. I caught this on Amazon Prime, free with membership.

It's a cabin in the woods with zombies film. Some 20 somethings visit the family cabin and the stupid half brother releases three zombies when he reads a cursed copy of the Declaration of Independence. A zombie Washington, Lincoln and Jackson come looking to destroy the document and take over the country. The film is very Evil Dead like but without the talent of Sam Raimi behind the wheel. It's filled with dumb jokes that weren't making me laugh. If I was mean spirited I would say it was poor as fuck. I gave it a 1 on the IMDb. I won't need to see it again. Hopefully I'll forget about it soon.

McDonald and Dodds Series 1

McDonald and Dodds Series 1 Created by Robert Murphy, written by Robert Murphy, directed by Richard Senior and Laura Scrivano. The first series consists of two 90 min episodes which aired March 2020. The show is set in and shot in Bath.

Tala Gouveia is DCI Lauren McDonald and Jason Watkins is DS Dodds. She's from London where she was fighting gang crime. Dodds is partnered with her after spending the last ten years on desk duty. Dodd's ill prepared for the real world in many ways but he's good at noticing things and having bits of useful knowledge. He rubs McDonald the wrong way but she comes to appreciate his work. James Murray is their boss, he's a major dick head, he doesn't have much patience and he sucks up to the local rich way too much.

It's pretty typical stuff crime stuff with a couple of good stories and entertaining cast. There's a second series with three 90 min stories and the third series is airing now.

Agatha Christie's Criminal Games Season 3

Agatha Christie's Criminal Games Season 3 The third of four sets of DVDs from MHZ. More adaptations of Agatha Christie novels with new detectives solving the cases. The 8 94 min movies aired in 2016 to 2018.

Samuel Labarthe is Commissaire Swan Laurence, Blandine Bellavoir as Alice Avril, and Élodie French and Marlène Leroy. It's the late 1950 in the French town of Lille.

The stories are a nice mix of murder and fun. The settings include a beauty spa, a hospital, a fashion house, a theater, a Christmas market where two orphans witness the killing of Santa Claus, a department store and an acting class. Commissaire Laurence dies in an episode and in another he dresses up as a woman to go undercover. There's a lot of humor in the stories. I got a some laughs out of each one. Definitely a show I'm going to want to watch all over again.

Science Fiction Sunday 696

Doctor Who 0116 Castrovalva Four part story that aired January 4 to 12 1982. Written by Christopher H Bidmead, directed by Fiona Cumming.

Peter Davison takes over as Doctor in the first episode of season 19. He's still got a trio of companions in Nyssa, Tegan and Adric. The Doctor has some trouble with is regeneration and computer recommends the planet of Castrovalva as a place to recuperate. They run into trouble when the Master shows up.

I see when I watched this the first time that I liked seeing Peter take over. I still do. There's not much Doctor activity for the first half the story, it picks up nicely as the Doctor gets back to normal.

Doctor Who 0117 Four To Doomsday Four part story that aired January 18 to 26 1982. Written by Terence Dudley and directed by John Black.

Instead of taking Tegan to the airport the Tardis dumps the gang on a spaceship. The alien in charge is a megalomaniac who needs a kick out the airlock. Adric is once again easily fooled by the baddie. Tegan isn't much help, she has a meltdown and steals the Tardis. The Doctor seems to have bad luck with is companions at times. I did like Nyssa but she was the one that the show runners were going to get rid of. Peter lobbied to keep her and they said OK. Just one more time when the people running the show make a poor decision. An average story.

Doctor Who 0118 Kinda Four part story that aired February 1 to 9 1982. Written by Christopher Bailey and directed by Peter Grimwade.

The Doctor and his companions land on Deva Loka and help the Kinda free themselves of the aliens from Earth. Nyssa has some health issues and stays in the Tardis while the rest get in trouble one way or another. Another pot boiler. Enough for this week.

Friday Night Movies 896

Thunder Of Gigantic Serpent 1988 Screenplay by Yao Ching-Kang, Wu Wen-Liang and Godfrey Ho, directed by Lung-Hsu Yu, English version directed by Godfrey Ho. TOGS was created with scenes from a 1984 Taiwanese film called  King Of Snakes and new footage directed by Godfrey Ho. He had the film dubbed in English and we watched it tonight.

A secret military lab has developed a growth serum that makes plants grow huge. The creator is reluctant to let it be tested on animals without more research. An impatient General takes charge the day some criminals attack the lab to steal the formula. The scientists are all killed but one, she manages to escape the baddies and intentionally crashes her car after tossing the formula out in a specimen case. She bales out of the car but is knocked out and taken to a hospital before she can retrieve the formula.

An annoying little girl finds the case and inadvertently uses the formula on her pet snake. It grows to gigantic proportions and slithers around the city, destroying property and eating the locals. The little girl can't understand why the military would want to attack her pet. By this time, a few mins into the movie, we've all come to hate the annoying little girl. We're hoping she gets eaten. We're all down with the snake.

The annoying girl gets chased by the baddies, she escapes and then is kidnapped. She doesn't know anything about the formula and despite constant threats she manages to survive the kidnapping. We were disappointed. It's generally a disappointing film with it's cobbled together story, cliched script, bad dubbing and clumsy special effects. Made me laugh though. You can see it on YouTube, link in the title above.

Death On The Nile 2022 Based on the Agatha Christie novel, screenplay by Michael Green, directed by Kenneth Branagh. It's the second Christie film with Branagh as Hercule Poirot and Tom Bateman as Bouc.

A long flashback to WWI shows us the reason for Poirot's mustache, shrapnel scars below his nose. We jump ahead to 1937 and Poirot is watching a singer in a nightclub. Six weeks pass and Poirot encounters his old friend Bouc at the pyramids in Egypt. Bouc's mother is there, played by Annette Bening. Poirot agrees to go on a cruise with Bouc up the Nile.

There's a long good time spent on the ship meeting all the passengers and being filled in on their melodrama. Inevitably someone is murdered and everyone is stuck on the ship while Poirot works his little grey cells. There's the usual tension among the suspects but no matter, Poirot comes through with the goods.

It's a very gorgeous film, there's plenty of scenery filmed at the golden hour. It almost makes me wish I was boating up the Nile. Hopefully I'm not the one getting murdered. Branagh does a good job of playing Poirot. The script was OK but I didn't think much of the WWI backstory and the final scene which ties back to that. I'd still happily recommend it, there's a good murder mystery and a good cast. Branagh and Green are already in development on a third one. I know I'll watch it again sometime and I've got a Blu-ray in the Agatha Christie section of my collection waiting for that day.

The Yorkshire Auction House

The Yorkshire Auction House Britain has a lot of auction house shows, the general public must have a good interest. I like them, especially Bargain Hunt. I'm interested in the objects for sale and I like the experts on the show. They have a good knowledge of many aspects of the trade. Angus Ashworth has been in the business for about 20 years, he had his own auction house for 13 years and has appeared on Antiques Road Trip. He's quite an affable fellow and a champion of Yorkshire. Ryedale Auctioneers is located in the pretty Yorkshire town of Kirbymoorside. He sells all sorts of stuff, his specialty is house clearances and removals.

Angus has several employees that run the auction house's day to day biz. He often travels quite a distance, often as much as 250 miles, to pick up collections and clear out houses. They'll take just about anything and sell as much as they can for what it will get at the auction. Some stuff is donated and some is tossed into the skip.

Each 45 min episode has a couple of stories, that family is selling their pub after the younger woman's husband died. They want to get all the stuff out of the building they can and get some cash for it.

The ladies had some interesting lots, those Chinese porcelain figures sold for £1250, a bar game table for £700 and 4 stone heads for £800. A lot of the less interesting bits and pieces went for tiny amounts by comparison but there were many small lots. After commission fees the family netted £3726.

One family had a massive payout, the young brother died and the two older sisters sold off his collectables. He had boxes of silver dishware and dozens of high value watches. They went home with just shy of £45,000. Not everyone makes that much, £1000-2000 is a more common figure after the auction.

There's a common thread running through the show, people get old and what do you do with their stuff. Some of the stories are sad, a death in the family, that sort of thing. Many of Angus's clients just have too much stuff to downsize to a smaller living space. They need someone to take their stuff and sell it. The client would make more money selling it online themselves but that's a lot of work and hardship, most of them just wouldn't do it. They need someone to take the goods and flog them. The client's get invited to the auction so they can see their stuff sell.

The clients get kind of emotional but most of them seem to have convinced themselves that they're better off without all their stuff. I'm glad I don't have that much attraction to the stuff I have. I've always easily sold off or tossed away many bits and pieces over the years. I just seem to get more anyway. I sold my comic collection, got a better one. I also have lost interest in a hobby and given away the left overs. Especially books, they take up a lot of room and don't have much resale value. I did notice that the clients rarely seemed to have a lot of books. Only a couple out of 60 families had more than just a single bookcase. I was entertained and would watch the next series at some point.

Avoidance Series 1

Avoidance Series 1 Created by Romesh Ranganathan and Benjamin Green, written by Romesh Ranganathan, Benjamin Green, Kefi Chadwick, Shaun Pye and Neil Webster. Six episode series that aired June 10 2022 on Sky.

Romesh Ranganathan plays Jonathan, a guy with severe conflict avoidance issues. Jessica Knappett plays his wife Claire, Kieran Logendra plays his son Spencer, Mandeep Dhillon plays his sister Danielle, Lisa McGrillis plays Danielle's wife Courtney. The acting is quite good and the characters are believable.

When the show starts we learn that Claire has ended their relationship. She wants to tell their son that Jonathan will be moving out. Rather than tell his son he takes him to the seaside to stay with Danielle and Courtney. Danielle wants to help her brother but Courtney isn't much interested in having Jonathan there, though she does likes Spencer.

There's a fair bit of conflict and a great bit of humor. You need the humor, I wouldn't want to watch a show that was just conflict and sadness. Too many of those around as it is. I liked this enough to wish there was a DVD set I could buy. I generally like Romesh, he has a nice dry sense of humor and a dark streak that I like. I'd certainly watch these again.