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From: Arthur Lipscomb <arthur@alum.calberkeley.org>
Newsgroups: rec.arts.tv
Subject: Re: What Did You Watch? 2025-06-23 (Monday)
Date: Tue, 24 Jun 2025 20:14:59 -0700
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On 6/24/2025 8:12 AM, Adam H. Kerman wrote:
> Arthur Lipscomb <arthur@alum.calberkeley.org> wrote:
> 
>> Child's Play (4K disc) 2019 remake that swaps out a cursed doll voiced
>> by Brad Dourif for a doll with AI voiced by Mark Hamill.  The AI bonds
>> with a little boy then goes on a killing spree.  This was not good.  It
>> was mostly background noise with the director's commentary.  I could
>> tell from the commentary the director had no idea what he was doing.  At
>> one point on the commentary he even said he didn't know why the doll was
>> doing what it was doing, but it was in the script.
> 
> The scriptwriter wasn't taking calls? If more dialog was needed to
> explain motivation, then he should have demanded revision or written it
> himself like many directors would do. 

I know!

Remind me again who is supposed to
> be in charge between the director and the writer.
> 

Last I heard it was the director.  But this guy was in over his head. 
I'm not sure when he recorded the commentary, but at one point he 
mentioned being surprised at the backlash for replacing Dourif with 
Hamill.  In what universe is that going to be a surprise?

>> The Studio (AppleTV+)  I started watching this recently and made it
>> through the first 4 episodes.  The series stars Seth Rogen as the new
>> promoted head of a film studio and follows his wacky adventures behind
>> the scenes.  The series is full of celebrity cameos.  It's sort of like
>> "The Player" or maybe that old Fox show, "Action."
> 
> Action was terrific. The satire was wicked. The writer jokes were
> hysterical. They hired the wrong writer because they forgot the name of
> the guy they really wanted. The prostitute gave him, uh, special
> motivation to produce the final draft of the script. They wouldn't pay
> him the overtime he was entitled to, so they made him a producer. Then,
> that joke was paid off: He yelled at a crew member on set, who
> subsequently died. The executive producer congratulated him on becoming
> a real producer, having killed his first crew member.
> 
> Is The Studio funny or not? You didn't say. I still have trouble
> picturing Rogan as the executive.


The first episode was pretty funny.  Rogan desperately wants to be a 
snooty film maker, but the studio just wants him to crank out popcorn 
flicks.  His first assignment after the promotion is to make a 
"Kool-Aid" movie.  But Rogan has the opportunity to make a movie with 
Martin Scorsese, and needs to figure out how to turn an arthouse 
Scorsese film, into a marketable Kool-Aid man movie.  The series went 
downhill from there.  It was like each subsequent episode was half as 
good as the one before it.  How is that even possible?!?  I do plan on 
eventually finishing the series.