I recently rewatched I, Claudius. Great script and acting has kept this 1976 chestnut on the best all-time list. It doesn’t have the fancy sets of Thrones or Rome. But I thought it holds up very well. I know people who disagree.
Yeah, that whole living in his parents’ basement thing was really cringey for me, even though I liked the movie. I suppose you could argue that the Kid lived there to protect his mom from his abusive dad, but I just thought a character like him would’ve moved out long before.
Still, my friend got in an MST3K style riff on it on one of our viewings. The Kid’s mom and dad are making out on the couch as the Kid and Apollonia watch from through the front window. Apollonia asks the Kid, “So, are those your folks?” My friend spoke up, “Nah, just a couple of horny burglars.” I think I laughed for ten minutes.
Absolutely fantastic. Just saying the actor’s names is music to my ears. Derek Jacobi! Siân Phillips! Brian Blessed!! John Hurt! Bernard Hill! Patrick Stewart! John Rhys-Davis! Margaret Tyzack! Even Kevin Stoney and Christopher Biggins were perfectly cast.
I was not a fan of Prince. Age and wisdom have allowed me to respect his talent but I’m still not a big fan. I thought the movie sucked at the time. Prince is not a good actor. He’s trying to be brooding and dark but he’s really a tiny man in a purple suit. Morris Day is the best thing about the movie. I don’t think it’s any worse now so I guess it holds up.
I just wish there was a higher quality format available for it. It’s like watching through a potato.
I was surprised to read Siân was only forty-two when she played Livia. She seems so much older.
I haven’t seen it in ages, so I can’t say if it holds up (I think it would), but I immediately flash on Sian Phillips as Livia. She was awesome.
I disagree. I like all three of the original Quatermass TV serials and movies. (You can keep the later sequels and remakes). The second Quatermass movie wasn’t about oil refineries – that;s just the facility that was kind enough to let them film there. It was about an alien takeover/invasion. IKt was a clever “reveal” to have the alien base resemble Quatermass’ proposed moon base, because it was, like that base, an effort to establish a beachhead on an alien world.
The British appeared to have a “thinh” about aliens taking over human beings. In a way, it was a way to keep things cheap – it’s easier an d cheaper to have most of your show using human beings rather than complex and expensive aliens. But Quatermass Xperiment was about some alien entity sdort of possessing returning astronauts. Quatermass II was about aliens sending probes containing blotch-like organisms that controlled people, zombie-like. Quatermass and the Pit was about the martian ship mentally controlling the Martian colony-by-proxy (Humans). Even outside the Quatermass series you got the same thing. Look at The TYrollenberg Terror (AKA The CRawling Eye) and the way the akien one-eyed octopoids controlled the human bodies they didn’t decapitate.
No, that’s the Vietnamese.
Wife and I recently finished watching The West Wing. This was the first time either of us had seen it, so I can’t say whether it “held up” or not. But we both really liked it. It first aired about 20 years ago, but apart from CRT monitors on peoples’ desks, there really wasn’t anything that seemed anachronistic about it here in 2024. It featured a good mix of international, national, and office politics for the characters to deal with, along with their own interpersonal issues. They even seemed to be dealing with many of the same issues we’re dealing with now: trouble caused by Russia and China, assassins, terrorism and armed conflict in the middle east, and the health of the president.
We liked that series a lot when it first aired, though we came into it midway through and caught up with the first couple of seasons on Netflix later on. Once we had watched all that had come before, we didn’t especially want to watch the rest of it again. It was an outstanding series in its time, and it seems to have held up well enough that folks like you, seeing it for the first time, enjoyed it.
They seemed to frequently do something on that show that drove me crazy. They would all be gathered in the Oval Office and the President would say something like “I am what I am.” Someone else in the room would then say “Des Cartes,” and they would all nod, knowingly. (The correct answer is Popeye the Sailor Man…but I digress.)
I’ve often wished I was one of those people who could come up with a famous quote to fit any given situation, but unfortunately I am what I am.
But is that all that you am?
Bear in mind that half the people in the Oval were professional speechwriters, and all of the people in the room were rabid overachievers. If your boss is a brilliant, extraordinarily well-read, prickly and capricious Nobel laureate, you’re going to bring your A-game to work every day, or you’ll find yourself outside the inner circle.
But really, the show - or at least the first four seasons - was just a vehicle for Aaron Sorkin’s dialog. I don’t expect it to be any more realistic than dialog from Tarantino or the Coen Brothers.
Strong to the finish ‘cuz you eat your spinach?
I feel there is a big difference between something holding up over time and rewatchability. There are things that I believe were well done and are still good but I have no interest in watching all over again.
Originally it was supposed to be sweet potatoes.
A hint of this remains in Popeyes saying “I yam what i yam”.
We never rewatch anything. “Northern Exposure” was an exception, since it had been gone for so long, but that has been a quite a disappointment, as several people have noted. I can’t remember the last time we watched anything a second time.
All of these nostalgia TV networks that have sprung up, MeTV and all…I can’t understand how anyone can sit and watch creaky old shows from the 1960s and 70s hour by hour. I have fond memories of a lot of those shows, but I have no desire to watch them today.
One show from the 1950s that I do catch from time to time is “The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet.” I suffer from occasional insomnia. If I find myself wide awake at 3am, I recline in my LaZBoy, turn on FreeVee, close my eyes and “Ozzie” puts me out in about 15 minutes. I actually like that old show, but there’s something about it that leads me into the land o’ nod quicker than popping a Benedryl.
I can’t re-watch dramas that old - twenty years old is about my limit. I rewatched Hill St Blues and St Elsewhere about 2005 ish. Couldn’t watch them again now - I recently tried to re-watch something from the 80s and I couldn’t get past the first episode. TV is much different now.
Comedies I can rewatch, but not the way some people have been watching The Odd Couple every night since it started in syndication around 1976.
The food…it burns.
I know you meant to type “Space” instead of “Soacw”, but could it be that you inadvertently discovered the name of It!'s home planet?