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You are here: Home / TV & Movies / Movies / Late Night Open Thread: Misdirection

Late Night Open Thread: Misdirection

by Anne Laurie|  March 17, 202111:37 pm| 67 Comments

This post is in: Movies, Open Threads

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We forced an AI to watch every Benedict Cumberbatch movie then write its own https://t.co/9zIisasD9c

— pixelatedboat aka “mr tweets” (@pixelatedboat) March 16, 2021

I was sure this would be based on one of the plethora of YA series where novelists mine the fanfic of ‘Harry Potter x Twilight x vintage British PBS television series’, but no — it’s from a real book by a British (stage) magician. Whether or not he was quite the dashing hero of his memoirs, Jasper Maskelnye certainly seems a perfect role for Mr. Cumberbatch’s talents…

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Reader Interactions

67Comments

  1. 1.

    Just Some Fuckhead

    March 17, 2021 at 11:41 pm

    Not Cumberbatch’s horror show but the “magician” movies Now You See Me 1 & 2 were the dumbest movies ever made until Tag: The Movie came out.

  2. 2.

    HumboldtBlue

    March 17, 2021 at 11:43 pm

    Interesting. WW2 (I’ve learned that British historians use the term SWW unlike us) is filled with extraordinary stories the vast bulk of which are just coming to the fore.

    I’ve been down this rabbit hole this week. Utterly fascinating.

  3. 3.

    counterfactual

    March 18, 2021 at 12:05 am

    I adore the stories about Maskelyne.

  4. 4.

    Raoul Paste

    March 18, 2021 at 12:07 am

    Some people need to be reminded that the Nazis are the baddies

  5. 5.

    Wag

    March 18, 2021 at 12:11 am

    Sherlock is awesome.

  6. 6.

    wmd

    March 18, 2021 at 12:12 am

    It would be interesting to see a movie from the Laundry Files series.

  7. 7.

    dmsilev

    March 18, 2021 at 12:13 am

    @Just Some Fuckhead:

    Tag: The Movie

    I’m sure we’re all eagerly awaiting Tag II: It’s Back and Tag III: You’re It.

  8. 8.

    Kent

    March 18, 2021 at 12:15 am

    I’ve gone down the rabbit hole a lot on Amazon Prime with the huge number of Russian WW2 movies and TV series that one can find there.  It’s basically a slice of the war that is so different from the typical American or British centric focus.

  9. 9.

    BruceFromOhio

    March 18, 2021 at 12:15 am

    Artificial Intelligences can be unintentional. They only know what they’re told.

  10. 10.

    West of the Rockies

    March 18, 2021 at 12:19 am

    The movie looks quite interesting.  I will happily watch.

    OT… DeSantis has, to my eyes, a compressed face.  His head looks vertically squashed.  That is all.

  11. 11.

    geg6

    March 18, 2021 at 12:22 am

    I will NEVER understand the fascination with this guy.  He’s not a very good actor and he can’t even make up for it with looks.  I wouldn’t hire him to take out my garbage.  He grosses me out.

    Someone please explain.  It’s totally beyond my ability to understand.  Kinda like Tom Cruise.  Ugh.  Can’t watch.  Ever.

  12. 12.

    HumboldtBlue

    March 18, 2021 at 12:29 am

    I adored college sports immensely as a child, a young fan, a student and later as an adult and sportswriter and the thought of exploitation was always lingering, very faintly at first but as one gained more experience a reality that became more and more clear.

    Penn State and Paterno broke the back for me. There were a thousand other stories told and untold that should have soured me to the power imbalance, the shameless and frankly boastful condescension to exploitable black bodies and minds that is the multi-billion dollar college sports industry and that story is now being told.

    The Guardian has one.

  13. 13.

    Mathguy

    March 18, 2021 at 12:30 am

    @wmd: Atrocity Archives would be an excellent movie, though the walk through said archives wold be terrible to put on the screen (I’d hate to give 3%ers any new ideas).

  14. 14.

    Mary G

    March 18, 2021 at 12:35 am

    @geg6: He has that upper, upper class British accent that appeals to some people. I am always reminded of Monty Python’s upper class twits and want to laugh, which works against him in a drama.

    I am getting tired of magic stories. Give me some nice aliens with slime if you’re going to make something up. I adored Harry Potter, but the magic was bullshit. If they could modify body parts, why do both Harry and Mr. Weasley wear glasses?

  15. 15.

    HumboldtBlue

    March 18, 2021 at 12:35 am

    The Buttercream Dream has some thoughts today about our current greatest terrorist threat.

  16. 16.

    Mary G

    March 18, 2021 at 12:39 am

    The usual suspects can’t be bothered, but there is a lot of information about the Atlanta shooter’s victims in this thread:

    Atlanta K's report says of the four Korean workers shot dead yesterday, two are in their 70s, one is in her 50s and another is in her 60s. They've all lived and worked at their spa, per this report: https://t.co/5Ak2TKwxKj— Jeong Park (@JeongPark52) March 17, 2021

    Not sex workers.

  17. 17.

    West of the Rockies

    March 18, 2021 at 12:39 am

    @HumboldtBlue:

    Anybody who plays football at even high school level (regardless of color) risks serious TBI.  (Ditto for boxing, MMA, and other hard-contact sports, too, such as hockey).  It does make watching problematic.

  18. 18.

    eclare

    March 18, 2021 at 12:40 am

    @HumboldtBlue:  Powerful essay.

  19. 19.

    West of the Rockies

    March 18, 2021 at 12:41 am

    @Mary G:

    You have to wear your suspenders of disbelief.

  20. 20.

    NotMax

    March 18, 2021 at 12:42 am

    @Kent

    There’s a whole bunch o’ them, that’s for sure. Some so heavy-handed I expected everyone’s knuckles to be raw and bleeding from scraping the ground.

  21. 21.

    Emma from FL

    March 18, 2021 at 12:45 am

    Interesting factoid: Cumberbatch is a second cousin to Richard III and participated in the King’s reinterment ceremony.

  22. 22.

    Martin

    March 18, 2021 at 12:46 am

    @HumboldtBlue: The holiday wellwishing at the end really makes it.

  23. 23.

    Poe Larity

    March 18, 2021 at 12:48 am

    I, for one, would read a GPT-3 version of our former blogmaster. Surely we have the geek power here to reanimate him.

  24. 24.

    Amir Khalid

    March 18, 2021 at 12:49 am

    @geg6:
    He did a pretty good job playing Alan Turing in that movie.

  25. 25.

    Martin

    March 18, 2021 at 12:50 am

    @BruceFromOhio: So we’ve accurately reproduced Trumpists. That’s progress.

  26. 26.

    Martin

    March 18, 2021 at 12:57 am

    @Amir Khalid: Honestly, what would make it perfect is to make a serious WWII period film and just drop Dr Strange in there, and have neither side acknowledge the disconnect.

  27. 27.

    ZoePaddyJ Johnson

    March 18, 2021 at 12:57 am

    British magicians in WW2 are a major part of the back story of Ben Aaronovich’s Rivers of London. I loved this series at first but they lost me when they switched to mostly graphic novels.

  28. 28.

    Amir Khalid

    March 18, 2021 at 1:00 am

    @Mary G:
    And how have they been living among Muggles all this while and acquired absolutely no understanding of Muggle technology — even Arthur Weasley, who is obsessed with it?

  29. 29.

    NotMax

    March 18, 2021 at 1:04 am

    @Amir Khalid

    While never did get around to trying them out so have no opinion pro, con or meh, Cumberbatch played young Horace Rumpole in a number of BBC radio plays.

  30. 30.

    gwangung

    March 18, 2021 at 1:07 am

    @Mary G: Lots of details on the women in the Korean language newspapers.

     

    None of it is in the mainstream papers.

     

    Hm.

     

    And, yeah. Not indicative of sex workers; just more poor women eking out a living, living above their shop (which a LOT of immigrants did…both my grandparents did that)

  31. 31.

    Ascap_scab

    March 18, 2021 at 1:33 am

    @dmsilev:

    Tag 3 – Tag 3-D!

    Tag 4 – Oh, Hell No!

    Tag 5 – Tokyo Tag.

    Tag 6 – Tag vs. Twister.

    Tag 7 – Tag on Elm Street.

    Tag 8 – Tag. We got nuthin’.

  32. 32.

    Keith P.

    March 18, 2021 at 1:37 am

    @Just Some Fuckhead: I liked “Burt Wonderstone” a lot.

  33. 33.

    NotMax

    March 18, 2021 at 1:46 am

    @Ascap_scab

    Breeding the spin-off franchise Children of the Tag.

    :)

  34. 34.

    Frankensteinbeck

    March 18, 2021 at 1:47 am

    @Mary G: and @Amir Khalid:

    The Harry Potter world building is actually terrible.  It’s a cosplay wizard world.  Substitute ‘space’ for ‘wizard’ in the names of stuff (Space Chess!) and you’ll see just how much it’s not intended to be realistic or consistent.  And, honestly, it doesn’t have to be.  It was aiming at fun imagery, and achieved that.  Try to pick it apart, and it comes apart instantly because it’s not a world.  Quidditch is the most obviously fake sport imaginable, designed solely to make Harry important.  And again, it did what it meant to do, just don’t go looking for more.

  35. 35.

    The Fat White Duchess

    March 18, 2021 at 1:49 am

    @ZoePaddyJ Johnson:  My household loves “Rivers of London.” Lisrening to the audiobooks—just finished #7 tonight. Haven’t looked at the graphic novels.

  36. 36.

    Major Major Major Major

    March 18, 2021 at 1:52 am

    @Wag:

    Sherlock is awesome.

    Started losing me at the end of season 2 and lost me completely at the end of season 3. Had some good episodes before that though!

  37. 37.

    The Fat White Duchess

    March 18, 2021 at 1:53 am

    This evening I went down a Facebook rabbit hole and landed in…perhaps the most blatant Russian disinformation site I’ve ever seen.  Very weird.
    I need sleep.

  38. 38.

    HumboldtBlue

    March 18, 2021 at 2:00 am

    @Major Major Major Major:

    Started losing me at the end of season 2 and lost me completely at the end of season 3

    I’m there too.

  39. 39.

    Major Major Major Major

    March 18, 2021 at 2:02 am

    @wmd: the one with the vampire and the elves would be a fun standalone.

  40. 40.

    HumboldtBlue

    March 18, 2021 at 2:12 am

    Yo, folks, there’s bad, there’s really bad, there’s super bad and then you reach the end.

    Who awaits?

    Badlands McNally. That’s fucking who.

  41. 41.

    mrmoshpotato

    March 18, 2021 at 2:16 am

    @HumboldtBlue: ​
     Good on ya, Trump trash* dumbass!

    *Prove me wrong.

  42. 42.

    Yutsano

    March 18, 2021 at 2:17 am

    When you come for the Delegate from Guam, you best not miss. Representative Michael San Nicolas almost didn’t leave a corpse. Not to mention the Guamanian Guard looks like they could win any war on their own.

  43. 43.

    eclare

    March 18, 2021 at 2:19 am

    @HumboldtBlue:  Wow!  Looks like that’s about $500k worth.

  44. 44.

    HumboldtBlue

    March 18, 2021 at 2:27 am

    @Yutsano: ​
     

    Guam brought her cookies. She hid.

  45. 45.

    eclare

    March 18, 2021 at 2:33 am

    @Yutsano:  My gawd!  That anchor was a dog with a bone!  “Yes we appreciate your family’s sacrifice *but* people are saying…”

  46. 46.

    karen marie

    March 18, 2021 at 2:59 am

    @Major Major Major Major: The only Sherlock for me is Jeremy Brett. Cumberbatch’s was a nasty one. His Watson’s servile attachment made no sense given the abuse. I couldn’t make it through two episodes.

  47. 47.

    Yutsano

    March 18, 2021 at 3:02 am

    @eclare: She had her talking point. She was damn sure gonna run with it. The delegate wasn’t having none of her shite. It’s a master class in how to handle the stupid news corpse.

  48. 48.

    Kathleen

    March 18, 2021 at 3:31 am

    @HumboldtBlue: Do you watch Real Sports on HBO? It has been covering this issue for several years, along with stories about the danger of head injuries. I think it’s the best news show on television because they always frame sports in the context of the larger issues of racism, poverty, etc.

  49. 49.

    HumboldtBlue

    March 18, 2021 at 3:37 am

    @Kathleen: ​
     

    Oh yes, it’s not new. Just hit me that I’m not taking part in the March Madness family text threads anymore. I haven’t talked college sports in depth with anyone in quite a while.

  50. 50.

    Mike J

    March 18, 2021 at 3:38 am

    @karen marie: Mean Sherlock is public domain.  Nice Sherlock is still under copyright.

    Really.

  51. 51.

    Bobby Thomson

    March 18, 2021 at 3:47 am

    @karen marie: Sherlock is House, with the exception there’s no pretense that the detective story is about medicine

  52. 52.

    Kathleen

    March 18, 2021 at 3:51 am

    @Yutsano: I don’t watch CNN or MSNBROC etc and 2 minutes of her spouting about nothing in high dudgeon is a jolt of mellow harshening. I loathe these people.

  53. 53.

    montanareddog

    March 18, 2021 at 4:10 am

    Not sure if I have shared this anecdote here before. Cumberbatch’s mother is Wanda Ventham, a highly-attractive woman who was well known on British TV in the ’60s and ’70s, frequently in “sexpot” roles. Cumberbatch was on a chat show with another, older British male celebrity (I cannot remember who) and the host mentioned who Cumberbatch’s mother was. The other guest was astounded. “Wanda Ventham was your mum?” “She still is, actually” was the laconic reply.

  54. 54.

    montanareddog

    March 18, 2021 at 4:17 am

    @HumboldtBlue: I clicked on your Buttercream Dream link to check if it was a sarcastic nickname for Hugh Hewitt

  55. 55.

    burnspbesq

    March 18, 2021 at 5:00 am

    T.R. Crandall Guitars is offering a Strat that it says was used on stage by Stevie Ray. The asking price is USD 100k.

    Makes you wonder what the asking price for Tony Rice’s D-28 will be.

  56. 56.

    James E Powell

    March 18, 2021 at 5:23 am

    @Yutsano:

    What’s galling is that no matter how bigoted, hateful, or just plain stupid a Republican is, the cable shows will call her “controversial” and make her a star. That a hole from Georgia is like a top ten star on cable news.

  57. 57.

    Amir Khalid

    March 18, 2021 at 5:33 am

    @burnspbesq:
    You don’t buy Stevie Ray’s old Strat to play; you buy it to put in a display case. That’s where this one will end up, alas.

  58. 58.

    Kathleen

    March 18, 2021 at 6:38 am

    @HumboldtBlue:  Good for you! I’ve read where football fans stopped watching NFL games because of its history of covering up danger of concussions. I admire people who love a sport but choose to no longer support it. I’m sure it’s difficult.

  59. 59.

    Geminid

    March 18, 2021 at 6:43 am

    Vice President Harris will swear in Deb Haaland as Secretary of the Interior today at 10:30am. New Mexico media has good coverage of Haaland’s farewell speech to the House.  She recounted her long journey from life as a struggling single mother, who applied to college for the first time at age 28, to her historic appointment as Interior Secretary.

  60. 60.

    Booger

    March 18, 2021 at 7:22 am

    @Geminid: sigh…another single mom who came to D.C. with high hopes and ended up getting a job as a secretary…

  61. 61.

    raven

    March 18, 2021 at 7:22 am

    @Kathleen: yawn

  62. 62.

    raven

    March 18, 2021 at 7:31 am

    @Kathleen: Here’s your End of Sport podcast by the authors of that piece. It starts with The Marxist! Good luck with that.

  63. 63.

    Ken

    March 18, 2021 at 8:36 am

    @burnspbesq: T.R. Crandall Guitars is offering a Strat that it says was used on stage by Stevie Ray. The asking price is USD 100k.

    The associated NFT, containing an encryption of the string “The Strat was used on stage by Stevie Ray”, is expected to sell for over USD 3.5 million.

  64. 64.

    FlyingToaster

    March 18, 2021 at 9:20 am

    @geg6:

    I will NEVER understand the fascination with this guy. He’s not a very good actor and he can’t even make up for it with looks.

    Ahem.  Beg to disagree.

    I first saw Cumberbatch in “The Last Enemy” on PBS.  Like most actors, he has a specific range, and plays those parts really, really well.  The articulate-geek-lack-of-affect guy.  A taller version of Matthew Broderick.

    I liked his Sherlock.  I didn’t like Martin Freeman’s Watson (Jeebus, dude, leave, change your #, block his calls, or just shoot him and go to jail).

    I liked his Doctor Strange, Alan Turing, Stephen Hawking.  I hate (hate hate hate) his Khan.  His Peter Guillam seems to have been mailed in.

    I like his looks; I find the whole “different hair color for every role” just plum weird.  Although he’s a ginger, he looks better with black hair, imho.

  65. 65.

    Just One More Canuck

    March 18, 2021 at 10:13 am

    @HumboldtBlue: Did you see the name of the officer who arrested hi? For all of our inner 12 year olds

  66. 66.

    fancycwabs

    March 18, 2021 at 10:32 am

    “Magician helps the war effort” was the subplot of Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell that ended up being a kinda throwaway “and they defeated Napoleon with a fog bank, now back to the family intrigue” thing, and I thought it would have made a fine book on its own.

    Not sure if winning WWII by showing Hitler which card he picked is what I had in mind, though.

  67. 67.

    Origuy

    March 18, 2021 at 11:42 am

    Lammas Night is a novel by Katharine Kurtz about a coven of British witches who work to counter the Nazi witchcraft planned to support Operation Sealion. There were real efforts by various pagans and wiccans to support the British war effort. The novel also recalls the legend that Sir Francis Drake was an occultist who cast spells to raise the storms that decimated the Spanish Armada.

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