Brendan Fraser plays a struggling actor who takes a job pretending to be a member of various people's families. Melodrama ensues. The whole thing takes place in Japan. I'm not really sure why the character Fraser plays is in Japan, he might have come for a job and never left. But he's there. There's two main threads. In one, he's a reporter talking to an aging actor suffering from early stages of dementia who wants to feel important again. In the other, he plays the absent father returned in order to help a young girl get into a prestigious school. In the end, of course, Brendan learns a valuable life lesson.

I was hoping for a more comedic take but that is not what comes up.

I'll fill this in tomorrow after the announcement. Super excited for that weekend - a wild 3-night run just lined up and I gotta pull it together for that. 

KB, tg - put this on your radar for Bicycle Day.

I found seasons 1 and 2, while pretty to look at, to be slow and meandering, leaning into boring. So epic...and simultaneously glacial. Hari Sheldon seems a super annoying know-it-all that you want to slap. I'm not fond of the cast of characters that follow him, either. Lee Pace as Day (the middle clone in Empire's 3 seats) is very wooden. 

I was going to give up and didn't bother with Season 3 even tho it came out awhile ago...but I started it and binged it this week. Much better. I barely remember where Season 2 left off, but this one is much better. Still beautiful to look at, but moves much faster, lots going on, but easy to follow. There's a new baddie, "The Mule" who easily controls people with his mind and intends to take over the galaxy and crush both Empire and The Foundation. Lee Pace's Empire discovers drugs and falls in love with a lady and gets to be "The Dude" from Big Lebowski for much of the season, but his acting is way better, especially after that part. The arc of Dusk (the eldest Empire clone) to Darkness is Shakespearean (possibly trying to hard to be so, but the sets and lighting that go with it are great)

There is a plot twist about The Mule revealed at the end that I'm not sure I can accept, but I'm not going to go back and watch the season over to see if it jives. There's a bit of "I'm going to tell you a story and all points are leading there...oh, I didn't tell you this one little thing..."

Anyway, recommended if you can slog thru seasons 1&2 (and I hear it got renewed for another)

--tg

(02-04-2026, 02:38 PM)Greg Wrote: Man on the Run.

Stacy’s dad. She visited him last week and the hospice nurse said it might be any day, or maybe a few weeks. He had cancer & onset of dementia. The last time I saw him was for his 85th birthday https://www.brotherhoodofdoom.com/doomFo...4#pid82384

He was pretty rough on his birthday, covered in lesions due to a bad reaction to a chemo medication. He participated in the conversation but he was clearly suffering. Stacy & Tara visited later and Tara said he spoke more then than she could remember (he wasn’t very talkative). Stacy said he hardly opened his eyes when she visited him a few days ago and seemed to be in even more pain.

Since the 60s, he was deep into cryonics. Stacy’s half brother got involved and it was he who texted Stacy, saying the cryonics pick up (which has to be quick) went smoothly. His head is now on ice in a cryonics storage facility. 

Stacy seems to be doing ok. Weirdly she lost her mom last March too. https://www.brotherhoodofdoom.com/doomFo...&pid=77102

We had such a lovely healing day. Now we’re back in the default world and mourning.

Surprised there was no thread for this. I guess DM's birthday was all anyone could think about.

I always liked him. He turned up in odd places occasionally and was good. And no one our age can forget him in Apocalypse Now.

This animated short was recommended on some feed…



—tg

The 2026 hesuipian rush is nearly over and the victor is looking like this:

(02-25-2026, 10:29 PM)Drunk Monk Wrote: Pegasus 3

I decided to celebrate earning my first black belt with a jidageki flick and this had been popping up as an Amazon recommendation for while now. It was surprisingly good. Lots of sword fights. Like the whole last half hour was sword fights. And they’re decently choreographed, complex multi-action single takes. It centers around two rogue ninja hawtties who don armor - shinguards, vambraces, chest guards and shoulder pads of metal which allows them to block swords in odd ways. There’s a gay shogun and his lover fencing sparring partner who has a dad, an older brother and younger sister who are all sword masters and a traumatized hawtty that plays with a pinwheel until she touches a sword and all her martial skill is triggered. It looks like it’s filmed on made-for-tv video with some cheesy ninja bomb effects. The the sword fights are ok, not mind blowingly fresh or violent, but consistently a dozen plus actions for each take. Good work. It’s not too sanguineous - one of the spit blood and die flicks - you know when some who gets a lethal blow because they spit blood. 

Satisfying in an undemanding way. Mildly D00M recommended. You could do a lot worse wifh an hour and a half.

This is a spin off of another anime that some of my dojo mates (the collegians) are fascinated by and are chomping at the bit over a theatrical movie coming out for this franchise. 

It’s about these girls who have horse ears and tails, and run super fast. They race like racehorses. They’re named after famous racing horses. I can’t quite grok it. 

The original series (based on a video game I believe) is Umamusume: Pretty Derby I think. It’s a typical high school anime, such a prevalent setting for the genre. It’s off kilter but good for year of the horse I suppose. I’ll watch a few more just to get to the bottom of this…