• Menu
  • Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Before Header

  • About Us
  • Lexicon
  • Contact Us
  • Our Store
  • ↑
  • ↓
  • ←
  • →

Balloon Juice

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Damn right I heard that as a threat.

The republican ‘Pastor’ of the House is an odious authoritarian little creep.

Humiliatingly small and eclipsed by the derision of millions.

They fucked up the fucking up of the fuckup!

Republicans firmly believe having an abortion is a very personal, very private decision between a woman and J.D. Vance.

Our job is not to persuade republicans but to defeat them.

It’s easy to sit in safety and prescribe what other people should be doing.

75% of people clapping liked the show!

Republicans cannot even be trusted with their own money.

It’s all just conspiracy shit beamed down from the mothership.

Fear or fury? The choice is ours.

Wake up. Grow up. Get in the fight.

My right to basic bodily autonomy is not on the table. that’s the new deal.

“When somebody takes the time to draw up a playbook, they’re gonna use it.”

You are so fucked. Still, I wish you the best of luck.

No Kings: Americans standing in the way of bad history saying “Oh, Fuck No!”

Dear elected officials: Trump is temporary, dishonor is forever.

Dumb motherfuckers cannot understand a consequence that most 4 year olds have fully sorted out.

Republican also-rans: four mules fighting over a turnip.

Giving up is unforgivable.

We need to vote them all out and restore sane Democratic government.

President Musk and Trump are both poorly raised, coddled 8 year old boys.

There are a lot more evil idiots than evil geniuses.

American history and black history cannot be separated.

Mobile Menu

  • Seattle Meet-up Post
  • 2025 Activism
  • Targeted Political Fundraising
  • Donate with Venmo, Zelle & PayPal
  • Site Feedback
  • War in Ukraine
  • Submit Photos to On the Road
  • Politics
  • On The Road
  • Open Threads
  • Topics
  • COVID-19
  • Authors
  • About Us
  • Contact Us
  • Lexicon
  • Our Store
  • Politics
  • Open Threads
  • 2025 Activism
  • Garden Chats
  • On The Road
  • Targeted Fundraising!
You are here: Home / Medium Cool / Medium Cool – Looking for Love Looking for Ideas!

Medium Cool – Looking for Love Looking for Ideas!

by WaterGirl|  March 24, 20247:00 pm| 99 Comments

This post is in: Medium Cool, Popular Culture, Culture as a Hedge Against This Soul-Sucking Political Miasma We're Living In

FacebookTweetEmail

Medium Cool is a weekly series related to popular culture, mostly film, TV, and books, with some music and games thrown in.  We hope it’s a welcome break from the anger, hate, and idiocy we see almost daily from the other side in the political sphere.

Arguments welcomed, opinions respected, fools un-suffered.  We’re here every Sunday at 7 pm.

In today’s Medium Cool, I am looking for input on topics for future Medium Cool posts.

Other than that, talk about whatever culture-related stuff you want!

FacebookTweetEmail
Previous Post: «spy v. spy flyouts War for Ukraine Day 760: Russia Bombards Ukrainian Civilian Targets Again!
Next Post: We’re All Mad Here »

Reader Interactions

99Comments

  1. 1.

    Baud

    March 24, 2024 at 7:10 pm

    There’s more culture to discuss?

  2. 2.

    TBone

    March 24, 2024 at 7:12 pm

    Is this too serious?  The Jan. 6, 2025 Project has published:

    https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/00027162241234174

  3. 3.

    West of the Rockies

    March 24, 2024 at 7:17 pm

    Has there been a time-travel books and shows and movies post yet?

  4. 4.

    Scout211

    March 24, 2024 at 7:20 pm

    I thought we nominated a bunch of new topics for Medium Cool a few months ago.  There were many topics suggested and there were lots of really interesting ones.

    Here it is. Lots of good ideas.

  5. 5.

    piratedan

    March 24, 2024 at 7:21 pm

    I’ll toss some ideas and will let the jackaltariat discuss their worthiness

    Worst movie you ever paid to see?

    favorite non-US TV show?

    worst required reading material by your school?

    first artist of the opposite gender whose music you bought

    coolest hobby that you’d be interested in trying

    most overrated TV show that you couldn’t fathom how it got popular

    your go-to comfort movie

  6. 6.

    TBone

    March 24, 2024 at 7:21 pm

    @TBone: I haven’t yet had a chance to read all of the articles but here are the search results for anyone interested:

    https://journals.sagepub.com/action/doSearch?AllField=The+January+6th%2C+2025%2C+Project&SeriesKey=anna&content=articlesChapters&SeriesKey=anna

  7. 7.

    BellaPea

    March 24, 2024 at 7:23 pm

    One interesting topic I thought about was television mini-series: which ones were the best, which were forgettable, any that were awful. We are currently watching the new version of Shogun and it is AMAZING how much better it is than the one in the 1980s–beautifully crafted, intelligent, and far more sensitive in its depiction of  Japanese culture in the 17th century. I also love Outlander and am enjoying Apple TV’s new Manhunt series.

  8. 8.

    Brachiator

    March 24, 2024 at 7:25 pm

    Some Agatha Christie related news.

    Crime novelist Agatha Christie’s typewriter and Dictaphone are among items on show in a new exhibition celebrating the literary genre.

    Christie’s 1937 Remington portable typewriter together with the typescript for her last Poirot novel can be seen at Cambridge University Library.

    Various first editions from other famous novelists are also on show.

    Murder by the Book: A celebration of 20th Century British Crime Fiction is on until 24 August.

    The university said one of the “star exhibits” is the typescript of her final Poirot novel, Curtain, which was so top secret it was kept in a bank vault for three decades until its eventual publication in 1975, the year before Christie’s death.

  9. 9.

    Manyakitty

    March 24, 2024 at 7:26 pm

    @BellaPea: I loved Outlander when it started, but each season edges closer to torture ‘pron’ and is increasingly difficult to watch. Do you find that, or is it just me?

  10. 10.

    Mr. Prosser

    March 24, 2024 at 7:36 pm

    Have we ever talked about music? I like most genres, Classical, Jazz, Blues R&B/Funk and the Beatles. We could discuss worst or most hated and best and most loved in any category.

  11. 11.

    Suzanne

    March 24, 2024 at 7:36 pm

    I suggested once before….. what is some work that you like that is offensive, for whatever reason, yet you love it anyway?

  12. 12.

    Baud

    March 24, 2024 at 7:38 pm

    @Suzanne:

    Probably anything by Mel Brooks.

  13. 13.

    Melancholy Jaques

    March 24, 2024 at 7:39 pm

    Random thoughts.

    Can we separate the art from the artist? Should we?

    Everyone with a laptop or a cell phone now has access to culture from all over the world and from just about any time since the invention of writing. What are the long-term effects? How can anyone determine what is good and what is not? Who gets to decide?

    Given the way tech has made everything available for little or no cost, how can artists – that is, musicians, writers, poets, painters, sculptors, etc. – make a living?

  14. 14.

    West of the Rockies

    March 24, 2024 at 7:40 pm

    @piratedan:

    Required reading books I hated the most?  On my way to an MA in English lit, I loathed The Stranger and As I  Lay Dying.  I was 20, and neither spoke to me or the world I knew

    Excellent suggestions,  Dread Pirate Dan.

  15. 15.

    Rachel bakes

    March 24, 2024 at 7:41 pm

    Comics? Print, graphic novels, web comics?

  16. 16.

    Mr. Bemused Senior

    March 24, 2024 at 7:42 pm

    @Baud:

    The Critic

  17. 17.

    Steve in the ATL

    March 24, 2024 at 7:43 pm

    @Suzanne: Straight Outta Compton,  one of the best rap albums of all time, yet arguably offensive

  18. 18.

    comrade scotts agenda of rage

    March 24, 2024 at 7:44 pm

    @West of the Rockies:

    OMG, I had to read both of those as well, I was 18. It’s amazing I ever took another English class much less the shitload I subsequently took w/o actually triple-majoring in it.

  19. 19.

    Steve in the ATL

    March 24, 2024 at 7:45 pm

    @West of the Rockies: my favorite IMDB review was of a time travel movie.  The reviewer panned it, explaining “that’s not how time travel works!”

  20. 20.

    raven

    March 24, 2024 at 7:46 pm

    @Steve in the ATL: How bout them Dawgs???

  21. 21.

    Suzanne

    March 24, 2024 at 7:47 pm

    @Steve in the ATL: Absolutely.

    I was listening to “99 Problems” the other day while I was running, and God, I love that song. And yet! There is much offensive about it!

  22. 22.

    WaterGirl

    March 24, 2024 at 7:47 pm

    @West of the Rockies: I don’t think we have done that yet.  And if we have, and we have already forgotten it, that makes it fair game. :-)

  23. 23.

    zhena gogolia

    March 24, 2024 at 7:47 pm

    @West of the Rockies: I hate both of those too. Ask Omnes about As I Lay Dying.

    (I like other Faulkner)

  24. 24.

    WaterGirl

    March 24, 2024 at 7:48 pm

    @Scout211: Are you calling me a slacker? :-)

  25. 25.

    zhena gogolia

    March 24, 2024 at 7:48 pm

    @WaterGirl: NotMax had a bunch of good suggestions in that thread, as I recall.

  26. 26.

    Chetan Murthy

    March 24, 2024 at 7:49 pm

    @Melancholy Jaques:

    Everyone with a laptop or a cell phone now has access to culture from all over the world and from just about any time since the invention of writing. What are the long-term effects? How can anyone determine what is good and what is not? Who gets to decide?

    I was just thinking about this, as I read some tweets in Adam’s Ukraine update.  Ukrainians of a certain age (basically, 40ish-and-younger) and with a certain level of education …. can tweet as if they’re living in a big East Coast city.  And it’s something I notice among people of that demographic all over the world: there’s a certain convergence of some part of the world’s culture to something like American popular culture,  because of social networks.

    When I was a kid,  our parents took us to India to see the family (1979).  When we left, Star Wars was all the rage.  When we arrived in Bangalore, it was Black Belt Jones (don’t ask me what it was, I didn’t see it).    Surely there’s some of that still today, but a whole lot less, b/c of the homogenizing effect of social media and the Internet.

  27. 27.

    Manyakitty

    March 24, 2024 at 7:50 pm

    @zhena gogolia: “My mother is a fish.”

  28. 28.

    Steve in the ATL

    March 24, 2024 at 7:51 pm

    @raven: gotdam hippie!

    RIP Ranger Russ.  Nice tribute to him from you the other day.

  29. 29.

    West of the Rockies

    March 24, 2024 at 7:52 pm

    @zhena gogolia:

    I was afraid I’d be alone here on AILD.  Glad I’m not.  Omnes isn’t a fan either, eh?

  30. 30.

    prostratedragon

    March 24, 2024 at 7:52 pm

    @Suzanne:  The Nairobi Trio. I won’t argue with anyone finding it to be an off-center racial slur. And yet, …
    For illustrative purposes only, with apologies.

  31. 31.

    Scout211

    March 24, 2024 at 7:52 pm

    I always like reading about everyone’s “aha” moment that was triggered by something in popular culture.

    A book you read, a movie or documentary, music, live performance, television program, etc.  How did it change your life, help you understand something, bring you peace, or change your thoughts or perspective or bring you meaning.  Or just surprised you about the world.

    I especially like reading about “aha” moments from our childhood and teens.

    Ex:  Reading The Diary of A Young Girl by Anne Frank was an aha moment for me when I read it for the first time when I was young, probably a tween at the time.  It was a world view that I had never been exposed to before.  It gave me a larger understanding of the world.

  32. 32.

    comrade scotts agenda of rage

    March 24, 2024 at 7:52 pm

    How about a series on Gore Vidal’s books?  I consider ‘Julian’ one of the best-written pieces ever.

    Or a series on historical novels/series?  Colleen McCollough’s massive Rome series is one that comes to mind but there are tons of others.

    Games, how about online game platforms?  One thing that The Plague Years ushered in for me was using one platform to play old board games with people I’ve known since 1979.  Has it stuck? It has for us.

    Or books that were considered classic/must reads back in the day and how they hold up.  ‘A Tree Grows in Brooklyn’ should still be a must read.

    Or, a deep dive into the writing, background and development of the “Little House” books.  Laura’s crackpot glibertarian daughter is considered one of the founding intellectual lights of the modern movement and there’s a ton of detail about the two women, the writing/editing process, etc.  I have the published iteration of Laura’s original material, there are several bios on Rose, etc.

  33. 33.

    NotMax

    March 24, 2024 at 7:53 pm

    Good/bad theme songs.

    Books/music you’ve loaned out and never gotten back you wish you still had.

    Most uncomfortable/disturbing/shocking scene/dialogue in a movie, play or TV show.

    Miscast or out of their depth roles for actors.

    Memories of mondegreens.

    The first book and/or record bought with your own money.

  34. 34.

    schrodingers_cat

    March 24, 2024 at 7:53 pm

    Have any jackals watched The Torture Report on Prime?

  35. 35.

    Starfish

    March 24, 2024 at 7:54 pm

    @Manyakitty: I quit watching this many seasons ago.

  36. 36.

    Steve in the ATL

    March 24, 2024 at 7:55 pm

    @Suzanne: and, for completely different reasons, the blues classic reinterpreted for rock fans by Ten Years After, “Good Morning Little Schoolgirl”, is creepy as hell.

  37. 37.

    Brachiator

    March 24, 2024 at 7:56 pm

    @Melancholy Jaques:

    Everyone with a laptop or a cell phone now has access to culture from all over the world and from just about any time since the invention of writing. What are the long-term effects?

    A variation on this theme. For the first time in history, we can go back to the start of some art forms and actually see what was produced. We can, for example, go back and watch almost any movie created since the beginning of cinema. We don’t have to depend solely on reviews, biographies or historians to know what the early Charlie Chaplin comedies were like. We can watch the film career of Marlon Brando from “A Streetcar Named Desire” to “Apocalypse Now.”

    Similarly with respect to a great deal of recorded music, we don’t have to wonder how Charlie Parker or the early Beatles sounded. We can just play the music.

    Does this enrich our understanding of classical and popular culture? Does it matter at all?

  38. 38.

    CaseyL

    March 24, 2024 at 7:59 pm

    @piratedan: I like those topics!  Any one would make for a lively discussion.

    Speaking of books/movies/other stuff you paid for but wound up hating, let me mention a strange phenomenon I’ve noticed and participated in myself:

    We love good books/movies/etc., and we do like to talk about them.  But it seems to me, what really makes us light up and talk a lot about are the stinkers.

    I saw a play at Ashland, some few decades ago, called “Blood Wedding,” a play by Garcia Lorca.  Lorca was a revered playwright/poet in Spain – and a martyr, murdered by the fascists at the start of the Spanish Civil War.

    I have not read his work, for which I do apologize.   I have no idea if the original play comes across as turgid, absurd and laughably bad as the Ashland production.

    I think they were going for period authenticity, which meant the actors didn’t speak their lines so much as they declaimed them at high volume, while striking very stylized poses.  There was a Greek Chorus, which explained what was going on throughout the play, including during scenes of dialog and action.  There were two intermissions of very 1930s style modern dance, where oiled half-naked woodsmen danced a metaphor of love and death (and Death herself joined them, wielding a scythe to their axes).

    The second time the stage cleared for the dancers, one of the people I was with muttered, “Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me” loudly enough to be heard by a few nearby rows – and set off a wave of giggles.

    It was really bad.  We never did figure out if the source material was to blame, or that specific production. Maybe being faithful to the theatrical and acting conventions of the time wasn’t a good idea?  Would modernizing it a tad have helped?  But I can tell you, we all dined out for years talking about that play, and I still enjoy bringing it up.  Like now.

    We saw many other plays while there, which were excellent.  We applauded and appreciated them, praised the acting, the staging, the production choices.  But we did not devote anywhere near the same amount of discussion time to the plays we liked as we did to the one that had us absolutely gobsmacked by shock and dismay.

  39. 39.

    Scout211

    March 24, 2024 at 7:59 pm

    @WaterGirl: Are you calling me a slacker? :-)

    LOL.  I would never!

    In fact, you work so hard and have so many irons in the fire, I thought it may have just slipped your mind with all the stuff you have to do to keep the hamsters running on this here almost top 10,000 blog.  😉

  40. 40.

    NotMax

    March 24, 2024 at 7:59 pm

    Thread needs some mood music.

    Moonlight Sonata, with a beat.
    ;)

  41. 41.

    Starfish

    March 24, 2024 at 7:59 pm

    @Chetan Murthy:

    And it’s something I notice among people of that demographic all over the world: there’s a certain convergence of some part of the world’s culture to something like American popular culture, because of social networks.

    One thing I really enjoy is finding rap in various languages.

  42. 42.

    dmsilev

    March 24, 2024 at 7:59 pm

    @Steve in the ATL:  I absolutely hated ‘The Time Traveler’s Wife’, though not because of the made-up mechanisms of time travel. It was more that by about halfway through the book I wanted both protagonists to die in a fire.

  43. 43.

    Scamp Dog

    March 24, 2024 at 8:00 pm

    @piratedan: Worst movie I paid to see? Starship Troopers, no contest. Somehow it managed to grab incidents from the novel to make a movie that more or less contradicted the source material. Yes, I get that the movie is a satire of fascism, but then write your own damn movie and name it something else.

  44. 44.

    schrodingers_cat

    March 24, 2024 at 8:01 pm

    @Brachiator: I have used this ability to a do deep dive in the Hindi cinema archives of many different lyricists. I rediscovered Shailendra who passed away years before I was born.

  45. 45.

    Geminid

    March 24, 2024 at 8:01 pm

    Travel and Nature documentaries?

  46. 46.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    March 24, 2024 at 8:02 pm

    @NotMax:

    Memories of mondegreens.

    I was skimming down and misread that as Memories of Mammograms. Even for NotMax, that was unexpected.

  47. 47.

    FastEdD

    March 24, 2024 at 8:03 pm

    Wolves of Glendale really make me laugh. They are NSFW and so way over the top so that you really can’t take them seriously. Try “Loud Ass Car” on YouTube. “Should have spent my money on therapy but instead I got TINTED WINDOWS.”

  48. 48.

    Manyakitty

    March 24, 2024 at 8:04 pm

    @Starfish: for that reason? I’m a completist by compulsion, but I’m not sure I have another half-season in me.

  49. 49.

    Melancholy Jaques

    March 24, 2024 at 8:04 pm

    @piratedan:

    Worst movie you ever paid to see?

    Howard the Duck

    favorite non-US TV show?

    Shetland

    worst required reading material by your school?

    My high school? Silas Marner

    first artist of the opposite gender whose music you bought

    Does Jefferson Airplane count as female? If not, Carly Simon.

    coolest hobby that you’d be interested in trying

    Woodworking

    most overrated TV show that you couldn’t fathom how it got popular

    Probably haven’t watched enough TV shows to know a good answer, but I find every reality show to be appalling. Especially the dating ones.

    your go-to comfort movie

    Just about any with Paul Newman

  50. 50.

    Scout211

    March 24, 2024 at 8:06 pm

    @Scamp Dog: Worst movie I paid to see?

    I think that topic was discussed before in Medium Cool or maybe it was a side topic.  I commented that the worst movie I paid for (and walked out of) was Moonstruck. There were many objections to that in the commentariat.  LOL

  51. 51.

    West of the Rockies

    March 24, 2024 at 8:07 pm

    @Geminid:

    For a mix of those two, Burns’ doc on our National Parks was good, especially the Muir stuff.  “He drank tea brewed with the needles so he could be more Sequoiacal. “

  52. 52.

    Chetan Murthy

    March 24, 2024 at 8:08 pm

    @Scout211: I had two “aha” moments:

    1. _The Strange Life of Ivan Osokhin_: it’s a story of guy who makes every decision wrong, and ends up in the first pages of the story broke, no career, just lost the love of his life, etc.  So he goes to a magician who says he can send Ivan back to when he was a child, to relive his life (which is what Ivan wants, so he can make the right decisions).  But the magician says that Ivan will make every decision the same way, but for different reasons.  And so it turns out, until Ivan arrives again at the magician.  And I won’t give away the rest, b/c no spoilers.  It helped me to understand that feeling of wishing you could go back and redo things.

      2. Ta-Nehisi Coates’ columns in The Atlantic: I’m embarrassed to say that until I read his work in the noughties, I wasn’t really woke.  Sure I subscribed to all the requisite beliefs, voted the right way, but didn’t actually believe in my heart of hearts.  Coates’ work changed that for me.  He woke me.

  53. 53.

    Starfish

    March 24, 2024 at 8:08 pm

    @Manyakitty: I think we quit because the daughter’s annoying husband was very annoying.

  54. 54.

    West of the Rockies

    March 24, 2024 at 8:09 pm

    @Scout211:

    I loathed Punch Drunk Love (Sandler).

  55. 55.

    gwangung

    March 24, 2024 at 8:09 pm

    @CaseyL: I’ve seen a couple versions of that play, neither of which were quite as bad as you described, so I guess it was the production. (Though an infamous local reviewer slagged one production for “incomprehensibly dropping into Spanish periodically”—it was advertised as a bilingual production).

  56. 56.

    Starfish

    March 24, 2024 at 8:10 pm

    @Suzanne:

    The Pete Davidson skit riffing on “I’m Just Ken” from the Barbie movie

  57. 57.

    NotMax

    March 24, 2024 at 8:11 pm

    @Dorothy A. Winsor

    There’s such a thing as carrying attempts to keep abreast of things too far.
    :)

  58. 58.

    zhena gogolia

    March 24, 2024 at 8:12 pm

    @Melancholy Jaques: OMG, you reminded me of Howard the Duck.

  59. 59.

    Steve in the ATL

    March 24, 2024 at 8:12 pm

    @Melancholy Jaques:
     

    Worst movie you ever paid to see?

    Howard the Duck

    …

    worst required reading material by your school?

    My high school? Silas Marner

    Will be hard to top those two! I have always loved reading but I always suspected those that hated it felt that way because they were forced to rad things like Silas Marner.

  60. 60.

    gwangung

    March 24, 2024 at 8:14 pm

    @Melancholy Jaques:

    Given the way tech has made everything available for little or no cost, how can artists – that is, musicians, writers, poets, painters, sculptors, etc. – make a living?

    They don’t, really. Society values artists so little that it’s expected that their products are free, hence the popularity of Napster when digital music started up. And don’t get me started about how art was so valued during the pandemic…but people are loathe to pay for it.

  61. 61.

    Manyakitty

    March 24, 2024 at 8:19 pm

    @Starfish: yeah, that doesn’t get any better.

  62. 62.

    NotMax

    March 24, 2024 at 8:19 pm

    @zhena gogolia

    Not worth the price of admission but appreciated that someone had rooted around the studio lot and came up with the plaster cast of the footprint from Forbidden Planet The blink-and-you-miss-it scene where that appeared made me snicker.

  63. 63.

    Geminid

    March 24, 2024 at 8:22 pm

    @West of the Rockies: There sure are plenty of these documentaries. There’d be something for almost everyone.

    Myself, I could really get going on a thread about Civil War books. Some other people would, but probably not very many. Same with Western novels, movies and TV shows.

  64. 64.

    NotMax

    March 24, 2024 at 8:25 pm

    @Melancholy Jaques:

    You’ve obviously never had the mispleasure of watching John Goldfarb, Please Come Home.

    Cast of luminaries, all slumming it.

  65. 65.

    villiageidiocy

    March 24, 2024 at 8:25 pm

    @West of the Rockies:

    Is that the one where he’s a stalker – followed a woman to Hawaii? God I hated it and the entire premise. Put me off anything Sandler. Or was it another Sandler movie? I can’t find the reference to it anywhere, but whichever one it was left me wondering why anyone thought it was a comedy and not a really bad drama.

  66. 66.

    rekoob

    March 24, 2024 at 8:27 pm

    In an earlier thread, many were thinking about where they were at major history events in the last 60 years or so. I’ve been enjoying the various “decade” series produced over the years by Tom Hanks, Gary Goetzman, and Mark Herzog. I’ll link to the original series on Wikipedia, since it describes all the others:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sixties_(miniseries)

    They also produced a special edition on 1968, which I found helpful in putting that year into context. I remember asking my father about that year in 1988, and he noted that as an Army Reservist at the time (JAG Corps), he was instructed (ordered?) to take his sidearm home with him. We never saw it, of course, since it was locked in the trunk of his car.

  67. 67.

    Steve in the ATL

    March 24, 2024 at 8:28 pm

    @Geminid: evergreen reply: Shelby Foote was an asshole!

  68. 68.

    villiageidiocy

    March 24, 2024 at 8:29 pm

    @NotMax: Most uncomfortable/disturbing/shocking scene/dialogue in a movie, play or TV show.

     
    movie: The Cook, the Thief, His Wife and Her Lover. A number of the scenes. I have to say I liked the movie but couldn’t in good conscience recommend it to anyone. The reality of the brutality was more disturbing than many violent movies I’ve seen.

  69. 69.

    dnfree

    March 24, 2024 at 8:30 pm

    As far as suggestions, I’ve been thinking of suggesting this.  The Atlantic magazine just came up with a list of 136 great American novels.  There are certainly some I expect and hope to see on the list, but also some I did not expect, including science fiction.  Might be interesting to see what people think of the list, if there’s anything that doesn’t belong, recommendations among the books, etc.

    https://www.theatlantic.com/books/archive/2024/03/best-books-american-fiction/677479/

  70. 70.

    NotMax

    March 24, 2024 at 8:34 pm

    @Geminid

    Quite interesting documentary, The Real African Queen. Well worth (IMHO) the investment of 50 minutes.

    (Was a bit of a bear to track down a place it is currently available in toto.)

  71. 71.

    dnfree

    March 24, 2024 at 8:36 pm

    Books other people apparently loved but I did not?  The last time this came up I was halfway through “The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store”.  I did not like it and I blamed Obama for putting it on his recommendation list, because it hadn’t sounded like something I’d enjoy but Obama seemed like a thoughtful guy.  Spoiler alert—it didn’t get better.  If anything, it got worse.  Cardboard cut-out characters and a forced plot.

  72. 72.

    CaseyL

    March 24, 2024 at 8:41 pm

    @gwangung: Really? I should try to see it again sometime.

  73. 73.

    West of the Rockies

    March 24, 2024 at 8:43 pm

    @villiageidiocy:

    That was the one.  Apparently it’s well-regarded by critics.

  74. 74.

    David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch

    March 24, 2024 at 8:48 pm

    With opening day a few days away, a discussion of the best baseball films.  Alternatively or additionally a list of the best sports movies.

  75. 75.

    A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)

    March 24, 2024 at 8:52 pm

    @Manyakitty: I know exactly what you mean.  The first season has an episode I had to fast forward through. Ugh. Other than that, the first season was great, and so was the second season, and the the third when Clare and Jamie were reunited, and then it really turned into a soap opera, and I am so tired of Clare not listening to the room and causing all kinds of problems, and in short, I don’t watch Outlander any more, despite how hot Sam is.

  76. 76.

    Brachiator

    March 24, 2024 at 8:56 pm

    @rekoob:

    They also produced a special edition on 1968, which I found helpful in putting that year into context.

    Even though I was a pre-teen, this felt like a pivotal time in history. So much going on all over the world.

    A video clip of the Chicago Convention, 1968. “The Whole World is Watching.”

    Amazingly, because we have since had military adventures in Iraq and Afghanistan, I note that I was recently talking to some young people who were unaware that there had been a strong anti-war movement in the US.

  77. 77.

    MountainBoy

    March 24, 2024 at 8:57 pm

    @NotMax:

    “Most uncomfortable/disturbing/shocking scene/dialogue in a movie, play or TV show.”

    The flying monkeys in the Wizard of Oz….

  78. 78.

    Brachiator

    March 24, 2024 at 9:04 pm

    @Brachiator:

    I meant to add a little something to my recent post.

    I remember someone handing me a special late afternoon extra edition of the LA Times with the headline, “Nixon Resigns” at the top. A group of us went out and celebrated.

    There was a strange feeling of relief at the bars we visited. Something in the air. We wondered if this was the craziest possible moment in American politics.

    Little did we know.

  79. 79.

    A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)

    March 24, 2024 at 9:07 pm

    I know everyone is entitled to free speech, but I have a problem with a lot of artists (especially writers), who write beloved books, and then turn out to be assholes of one flavor or another.  Does knowing their dark side ruin the (previously) beloved books for you? I’m thinking in particular (off the top of my head) of J.K. Rowling. Also actors like Susan Sarandon. It used to be a lot easier to love a book and not know anything about the author which would ruin the experience.

  80. 80.

    Chris

    March 24, 2024 at 9:22 pm

    @Scout211:

    A book you read, a movie or documentary, music, live performance, television program, etc.  How did it change your life, help you understand something, bring you peace, or change your thoughts or perspective or bring you meaning.  Or just surprised you about the world.

    Wasn’t sure what to say here until this comment reminded me:

    @Geminid:

    Myself, I could really get going on a thread about Civil War books. Some other people would, but probably not very many. Same with Western novels, movies and TV shows.

    The Killer Angels.  Read it as a teenager in the mid-2000s right around the time I was starting my conservative-to-liberal transition.  I’m sure it would have problematic aspects if I reread it today, and it’s probably still too generous to the Southern officer class in a lot of ways.  But it was the first time I’d ever seen the cause for the Civil War spelled out ideologically, in a way that wasn’t just abolitionist but patriotic, while at the same time being more meaningful than just “well, we don’t want some of our states to break off because then the country would be smaller and that would make us sad,” and it’s been a big influence on my view of the Civil War and all the culture wars that come from it.

    The book, through the eyes of both Chamberlain (the Union colonel who’s the main character or the closest thing to one) and Fremantle (the British observer in the C.S. Army), associates the Confederacy not just with slavery, but with the values of Old Europe, the obsession with tradition, with class, with breeding, and above all with bloodlines.  The difference is that Fremantle thinks it’s a wonderful thing and even fantasizes about the Confederacy rejoining the British Empire after independence, while Chamberlain is horrified by it, thinks it’s a betrayal of the American Revolution, and sees himself as on a crusade to stamp it out and stop aristocracy from returning to America.  As his friend Kilrain puts it, they’re fighting for “a country where the past cannot hold a man in chains.”

    It manages the trick of being truer to the 1860s than a lot of what’s been written about it (it is, in fact, a decent summary of how the Unionist cause saw itself), while still being plenty resonant to modern-day values.

  81. 81.

    Sure Lurkalot

    March 24, 2024 at 9:30 pm

    How about your favorite line in a movie or song?

    Someone mentioned bad Adam Sandler movies…but one of my favorite lines, Cloris Leachman mother to Tia Leone, her self absorbed, spoiled daughter: “Honey, lately your low self-esteem is just good common sense” is from Spanglish.

  82. 82.

    Manyakitty

    March 24, 2024 at 9:32 pm

    @A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan): I’m torn about the upcoming episodes because I think they are set in Scotland again and I adore the actress who plays Jamie’s sister. But yeah, it’s become an ultra violent bodice ripper. Yuck.

  83. 83.

    Manyakitty

    March 24, 2024 at 9:33 pm

    @A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan): Woody Allen. I just can’t with any of his movies any more.

  84. 84.

    Mr. Bemused Senior

    March 24, 2024 at 9:35 pm

    @Manyakitty: alas, I have to agree. My mother was an admirer of his, thought him a genius. I’m glad she didn’t live to see the dark side.

  85. 85.

    Nelle

    March 24, 2024 at 9:36 pm

    Maybe too off topic for Medium Cool, but I would be interested in short descriptions of teachers who have had a lasting influence on one’s outlook and life.  As a retired teacher, I know that I had students who will never remember a thing about me, not even my name.  Still, maybe there was a seed that later bloomed or a ripple that spread into something.  So often, we never have an opportunitiy to go back to thank the teachers or professors.

  86. 86.

    Nelle

    March 24, 2024 at 9:42 pm

    My husband has always intended to write his memoirs but is set on writing them in chronological order, rather than telling stories.  He has barely started.  For his 80th birthday, our son gave him a subscription to Storyworth.  My husband is a bit irritated that it is taking him off of his engineering mind’s idea of it, but really, what the kids want are his stories.  When I met him, back in olden days, he was putting himself through grad school by flying summers in northern Alaska as a bush pilot.  That was after three years in nuclear subs and three years in Vietnam.  He’s had a rich and varied life and he can tell a good story.  I don’t mind sharing some of the topics here; maybe not all culture, but at least conversational.  The first was a song that you heard at a pivotal time of your life – hearing it brings it all back.

  87. 87.

    Kayla Rudbek

    March 24, 2024 at 10:01 pm

    @Scout211: that would be Harry Kemelman’s Rabbi mystery series for me (I was raised Roman Catholic so this was an exposure to Judaism)

  88. 88.

    Kayla Rudbek

    March 24, 2024 at 10:05 pm

    @Brachiator: although early recordings and movies are more difficult to listen to and watch for me due to sound quality and pacing (I am thinking pre-1940s)

  89. 89.

    NotMax

    March 24, 2024 at 10:20 pm

    @Brachiator:

    Many, many, many of the movies made prior to the 1950s are lost forever, sad to say. Have seen estimates of around 50% of the total produced.

  90. 90.

    NotMax

    March 24, 2024 at 10:21 pm

    False link in #89. Fat fingered fumble.

  91. 91.

    WaterGirl

    March 24, 2024 at 10:31 pm

    @NotMax: fixed!

  92. 92.

    frosty

    March 24, 2024 at 10:41 pm

    @Nelle: ​That sounds like the way my mother wrote her autobiography, by subject, not chronology. I need to do something like that. Sooner rather than later. Dementia came on in Mom’s last years but she could pick this up, read some of it, and remember who she was.

  93. 93.

    Brachiator

    March 24, 2024 at 11:21 pm

    @NotMax:

    Many, many, many of the movies made prior to the 1950s are lost forever, sad to say. Have seen estimates of around 50% of the total produced.

    This is true. It is even worse with respect to recordings and radio and TV programs. And yet you can still reconstruct the history of film from its beginnings and much material has been preserved.

    We can’t know exactly how Richard Burbage played Hamlet, but we can watch Laurence Olivier.

  94. 94.

    prostratedragon

    March 25, 2024 at 12:00 am

    Here’s one that I puzzle over, while not disagreeing: why are remakes of movies so less well-received than new productions of plays or operas? There are exceptions. For instance, the many remakes of A Star Is Born continue to get both respect and audiences, and there are other examples. But in general there seems to be a big dropoff, and a sense that the newer projects are a pointless exercise. Why?

  95. 95.

    West of the Rockies

    March 25, 2024 at 12:06 am

    @Nelle:

    Interesting suggestion, Nelle.  I taught CC composition and lit for 14 years in northern CA and have had the lovely experience of being approached and thanked years later by a mid-sized handful of students.   It was gratifying and somehow humbling.

  96. 96.

    Brachiator

    March 25, 2024 at 12:38 am

    @prostratedragon:

    Here’s one that I puzzle over, while not disagreeing: why are remakes of movies so less well-received than new productions of plays or operas?

    Kinda depends on how well remembered the earlier version was. And some people like to complain that “they don’t make them like they used to…” while also demanding remakes that are little more than empty nostalgia fests.

    ETA The classic version of The Maltese Falcon was a remake of a 1931 movie.

  97. 97.

    Geminid

    March 25, 2024 at 4:40 am

    @Chris: It’s a fascinating subject– for some people. Maybe a post on Gettysburg would be good some July 1-3.

    But in general, I would not recommend Civil War histories or novels for a Medium Cool post because it might be the same five people commenting up a storm. The topic comes up sometimes in more general threads and that’s good enough for me.

     

    @Geminid:

  98. 98.

    Kosh III

    March 25, 2024 at 9:55 am

    worst required reading material by your school?
    Great Expectations two years in a row.

    most overrated TV show that you couldn’t fathom how it got popular
    South Park

    Movie I can watch over and over and over….
    Porky’s

  99. 99.

    BellaPea

    March 25, 2024 at 11:53 am

    @A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan): I’ve read all of the books, so perhaps I am more patient with the story lines. I do think there are far too many rapes in the books and in the series. It seems to be an easy out for a number of threads. I know the episode in the first season that you’re talking about–it was in the books, but the series went a bit too far in showing everything, to my mind.

Comments are closed.

Primary Sidebar

On The Road - Winter Wren - Point Lobos State Natural Reserve 3
Image by Winter Wren (7/31/25)

World Central Kitchen

Donate

Recent Comments

  • Martin on Thursday Night Open Thread (Jul 11, 2025 @ 3:52am)
  • bjacques on War for Ukraine Day 1,232: The Cost (Jul 11, 2025 @ 3:01am)
  • pieceofpeace on Thursday Night Open Thread (Jul 11, 2025 @ 2:48am)
  • Jay on Thursday Night Open Thread (Jul 11, 2025 @ 2:47am)
  • pieceofpeace on War for Ukraine Day 1,232: The Cost (Jul 11, 2025 @ 2:36am)

Balloon Juice Posts

View by Topic
View by Author
View by Month & Year
View by Past Author

Featuring

Medium Cool
Artists in Our Midst
Authors in Our Midst
No Kings Protests June 14 2025

🎈Keep Balloon Juice Ad Free

Become a Balloon Juice Patreon
Donate with Venmo, Zelle or PayPal

Calling All Jackals

Site Feedback
Nominate a Rotating Tag
Submit Photos to On the Road
Balloon Juice Anniversary (All Links)
Balloon Juice Anniversary (All Posts)
Fix Nyms with Apostrophes

Social Media

Balloon Juice
WaterGirl
TaMara
John Cole
DougJ (aka NYT Pitchbot)
Betty Cracker
Tom Levenson
David Anderson
Major Major Major Major
DougJ NYT Pitchbot
mistermix

Keeping Track

Legal Challenges (Lawfare)
Republicans Fleeing Town Halls (TPM)
21 Letters (to Borrow or Steal)
Search Donations from a Brand

Feeling Defeated?  If We Give Up, It's Game Over

Site Footer

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

  • Facebook
  • RSS
  • Twitter
  • YouTube
  • Comment Policy
  • Our Authors
  • Blogroll
  • Our Artists
  • Privacy Policy

Copyright © 2025 Dev Balloon Juice · All Rights Reserved · Powered by BizBudding Inc

Share this ArticleLike this article? Email it to a friend!

Email sent!