It's now been thirteen months since I began this series, had originally started a similar one in 2018 but aborted it after two months. This new and improved version has proved to be quite popular and posts like these have been getting more views than some for (ex)Idols. But need to keep changing things up, this and the next October post will keep with the same format though will try to think of something new for November. **EDIT: Actually was thinking perhaps not having any kind of theme or format would work out well and could just watch and review whatever tickled my fancy for that week.** There will be a slight change for today as I'll have a second American drama which I'll be taking a quick look at, it's an older series that I and sure most of you have heard of but had never seen one second of an episode until I bought a mini boxset for it.
Think often the main attraction is the intro gals I have and can't blame you for wanting to see what else is in the post! Often have a theme with the women, in the last post it was about four of mine(your) favorites who have gotten married this year, the post before that talked a bit about this year's faves list. The most common theme has been for those women who have disappeared or haven't been seen for a while, a few times it's worked as I was able to do a post for them soon after. But not for Miyu and this is the second time she's led off one of these posts. Miyu will be hitting the age of 27 in nine weeks, she did so much gravure modeling up until the end of 2023 and that had led to other gigs in show biz. But since then activities and news about Miyu has been close to zero, she is a motorcyclist enthusiast and that did derail her career to an extent. **** I just found out while writing this that Miyu released her fourth photobook in July and how was it possible I never heard anything about it? Well, sure it was a low key affair and she hadn't appeared in any magazines to promote it plus had never heard her name mentioned at a news site. So let me do a bit more digging about Miyu and the article I read said it was her first gravure modeling in almost three years, seems she went AWOL again very quickly after the book's release. So if I can find enough things from 2026 will do a post for Miyu, if not will have another section in one of these future posts for her. Miyu was such a massive favorite of mine who was on the verge of being my all time #1 gravure model and perhaps also my most hottest/sexiest/alluring/etc. woman of all time!!!!
Mai is that way for me and from 2014 until sometime in 2021 was one of my top five woman but just stopped caring about her activities which have really decreased in the last few years. She's now 34 in age and has settled into a PT show biz career, a little acting here and there but there's been no 2026 dramas and only one film, she does co-host a weekly variety show. Mai doesn't do any kind of modeling these days and rarely appears in magazines or at events/fashion shows. So besides me having a 'cutoff date' Mai has made it easy not to follow her, a few times I've had the urge to do a post but it hasn't been possible and will it be that way forever? Don't know the answer to that though it sadly could be yes, know many viewers miss Mai as she's one of the all time most popular women here and is in second place with having the most posts. Even though only four(?) of the first two generation members of Nogi have gotten hitched it's become so difficult doing posts for the graduates and those 'Hey Days' of doing such a vast amount of Nogi posts is a thing of the past which will never be duplicated. I do get a bit nostalgic at times and Mai is one of the highlights of those past Glory Years though I think the posts these days are so much better than the ones done a decade ago and as you can see below it truly is so difficult to top Mai....
As mentioned in the intro will have a slightly different format as I'll talk about two TV series and a pair of movies plus one more woman, usually it's one TV show and three movies. In the last post two of those movie segments were for eleven of them as I discussed two series. Which wasn't too easy to do as cramming info about five movies into four paragraphs meant I could just talk about the tip of an iceberg though will try to work at doing a few more in the future. So far have written all of this up in one day and that will continue for a few more segments, that's very rare for me as to make things simpler I usually do one section a day and create one new post for the day. But it's pouring rain out plus I have zippo things for a new post so may take the day off from posting, it's currently October 16th. EDIT: Wrote up all except for the second film review so will have this post four days earlier than planned. My brain has been scattered since the beginning of the post and now I'm musing about whatever so guess it's time to briefly talk about what I've recently viewed. But as far as movies go I usually just talk about 2-3 of them even though I may have watched twice as many as I just try to pick the best of the bunch.
Speaking of best of the bunch this first TV series certainly is the Creme of the Crop as it's my all time favorite series. Coming up in the next post for this 'My Current Watches' series will be the third season of a sci-fi series and had planned on making October a ghoulish month for what I view and review. But don't want to fall into too much of a rut and think I've been doing that do a slight extent lately with these posts though they are much more interesting than the ones done a year ago. Also want to add in again it'd be nice to hear from some of you readers such as recommendations you may have, these posts are drawing such a high amount of views but have rarely received any comments.
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Here's a series that doesn't need much of an introduction here as this has to be the sixth or seventh time I've discussed a season. Of course that show is "Gunsmoke" as you can see above, that's the massive boxset I have of the series and if I could only bring one thing with me to a deserted island when the ship was sinking that's what I would grab..... unless of course there were some Idols aboard! Like most American TV series purchased the boxset blindly as I knew so little about the show and not sure why I had the urge to get it which was about two years ago. Slowly but surely have been making my way through this humongous boxset which will be the largest I'll ever buy as it has the grand total of.... 143 discs! There were 635 episodes in this series which is the longest Western show to air as there were twenty seasons, I just completed the eleventh and two posts ago talked about the first sixteen episodes of the season. With this season now complete have viewed 409 episodes and still have 226 to go! TV really changed in the late 1960's, this season aired from September 1965 to the Spring of 1966. Back then shows would have thirty or more episodes, the first eleven seasons averaged 37. But after this "Gunsmoke" just averaged 25 episodes a season and the same drop happened with most long running TV shows, I love this show so much am going to hate it when the seasons become much shorter.
But 226 episodes is still quite a few of them which could take me another nine months to watch as I will only do one season a month. In the previous posts for the show talked much more about what the series was about and gave most of the bios about the major characters. For this season the main ones are right above and recommend checking out those older posts as I don't want to repeat myself which happens too often. The best thing I've learned/discovered this past month is how to take screenshots of regular DVD's such as the above boxset and for now on all reviews will be including them. Which makes it so easier for you readers to follow a story and especially for movies. A few years back bought a DVD writer as laptops these days don't come with disc drives, the writer works so superbly as I've been able to make many DVD's and you can also view the discs on the writer so could take screenshots for these reviews of discs I created. But hadn't realized the writer could also take screenshots from regular DVD's so that will make these posts even better and below is the first set of them I've taken for this classic show. There's been 409 episodes to date for "Gunsmoke" or should say that's how many I've viewed. There's been 405 stand alone shows and a pair of two part stories that naturally took two episodes. The screenshots for one of those two part stories is below, it's from the 19th episode and the story was titled "The Raid". The ratings weren't too high for this eleventh season though it's been my favorite to date, the shows and stories have been much more intense with this story being the most action packed one to date.
The story so far was of a group of eight thieves robbing banks in the mid-West, their latest one was at a Missouri bank where they netted $20,000 which today is worth over $600,000!!!! The group is well organized and the men are rather smart as they don't follow a set pattern with their heists and their faces were still unknown for most of this "The Raid" story. One unsmart thing the group did was to make Dodge City the location for their next robbery even though they knew Marshal Matt Dillon is an unbeatable opponent! But for a long time even he wasn't too confident with capturing the group after they robbed the largest bank in Dodge City, the smartest of the group lit the town on fire after the heist and that prevented Dillon from giving chase immediately. But one thief was shot during the robbery and the group kidnapped Doc Adams to save their mate, he's the man below in glasses. Doing such a thing to Dillon's close friend was such a mistake as it meant neither he nor many of the citizens would give up the chase for the gang. Of course Dillon and his PT deputy Festus in the top screenshot were able to corner the group by the end of the episode, by then only three of the eight were still alive. It may not be easy to tell from the screenshots but this was one action packed and intense episode though to me there were a few better shows in this season.
So will end off here and I could talk about this must-watch series all day, there are some sites out there devoted to the show which I need to visit more. Sure most of you are streamers but I'm not and may never be as I prefer having the physical copy of something such as this show's above boxset. At $170 it's not cheap but it's worth every cent as there's over 440 hours of episodes plus some special features so all in all the set is a bargain. Up next for my viewing will the third season of a sci-fi series, that show is "Babylon Five" which was also a blind purchase of mine and lucked out with that series which I've been enjoying. Then will have the fourth season of "Grimm", the first three seasons were so terrific and hope the final three are too. After that am unsure what to do watch, need to get back into viewing some series from Japan and Korea as I have such a pile of unseen ones to view. Will skip having a video as the only ones on YT are for full episodes or at least the high quality videos are, right after these screenshots is one more mini segment for the series.
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Women in general just looked so different from the 1950's until the late 70's, to me they looked much better and classier than the females of today which includes scantly clad Idols! One major difference isn't in their looks but the kind of photos from that era as they were much more conservative but leaving so much to the imagination was actually a plus in my book. "Gunsmoke" is set in the 1870's yet Kitty did dress in kind of an alluring way even though her Long Branch Saloon drew so many tough customers, she herself was a bit tough too but to date have never seen her in a fight but she has been kidnapped twice and was in a mock trial for some murders! Below are some screenshots from the last four episodes of season eleven, Amanda as Kitty looked so ultra perfect and it's not always easy to tell that from pictures. Did say the next season will be the first in color and seeing Kitty's red hair will take some getting used to but did see Amanda in a 1953 movie that was in color so I know what do expect, will also be reviewing that film in the future. Have a short segment after the fabulous screenshots which is from season nine and this may be the last time I have many B&W pics of Kitty.
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Those first two pics are the mini boxset I bought a month ago for the "Cloverfield" trilogy though this second film "10 Cloverfield Lane" didn't have anything to do with the original movie until the end. That set only cost $5 and what a steal that's turned out to be as the first two films are the best American films I've seen in the last dozen years but will confess to not viewing many of them. This movie wasn't a sequel to "Cloverfield" which was released in 2008, that was such a terrific movie which I did review and only wish it had been longer than 78 minutes. This second film lasted for 98 and I never count the closing credits as part of a film's minutes, "10 Cloverfield Lane" was released in 2016. In an oddity which worked out well there were only three major characters and at the end only one was left standing.... we think. Who was the woman in the film Michelle and she was played by Mary Elizabeth Winstead, she was in the third "Final Destination" movie which I highly recommend and she had the lead role in that film too. To me Mary looks so darn good, she may not be in the same league as Amanda above but I prefer women with down to earth looks plus she seems to be a person with their head on straight! I'd like to see Mary in a few other things and if you have any suggestions please leave a comment.
There was one common theme between the first and second movies which is the world was coming to an end! That first film was so action packed and you needed to hit Pause often to catch your breath! There wasn't nearly as much horror or action in "10 Cloverfield Lane" though the intensity level was through the roof! Mentioned that there was just three characters in this 98 minute film, most reading this should know who John Goodman is and he played the villain yet at times hero Howard, no last names were used. Playing the younger man Emmett was John Gallagher and I never heard of him before. Last but certainly not least is Mary who will be in the most screenshots and played the heroine Michelle. When the film began Michelle was moving out of the apartment she shared with her boyfriend Ben, he wasn't there and actually Michelle seemed to be fleeing. We didn't see the city she was in but am thinking the location was New Orleans as most of the film took place in an underground bunker forty miles outside of Lake Charles. The highway Michelle traveled on was quite desolated and she seemed spooked as though somehow Ben was tailing her. The above screenshot took place a few seconds after Michelle's car was rammed by a truck and that was the turning point of the movie that took place about ten minutes in. A few days later(a week?) Michelle woke up after being unconscious since the car accident, that's right below. But Michelle didn't roll out of bed as she couldn't and as you can see had a shackle around her right leg, also an IV attached to her left arm! To make matters worse there was no cellphone reception though as we soon found out there would be no human to call!!!!
Below is Howard and what a huge man he was though at first was agile for his size. Howard was a very cool and collective man, he calmly described the situation to Michelle which she couldn't believe. Which is that the Earth or perhaps just America had been attacked by either nuclear weapons or some sort of chemical warfare. Howard thought it could be Aliens but would out his money on the Russians attacking and he knew things such as that for he was in the Navy for fourteen years. We never did learn what Howard's true background was besides being in the Navy as his stories had many holes in them, for instance did he have a daughter and if so why did she leave him? Of course those tales of an alien or Russian attack weren't believed by Michelle as the world was in its usually crazy state when the accident happened. Howard could understand Michelle having a hard time accepting the truth and a few times she did try escaping, good thing she failed as we and her soon saw Howard was telling the truth. There was one other person in the underground bunker whose name was Emmett, he's the young man with a beard and had known Howard slightly before this attack on the Earth. When it happened Emmett rushed to the bunker for he knew what Howard had built, he pleaded to be let in and was as perhaps Howard didn't want to be lonely? That may have been why Howard had wanted Michelle to join the pair, later on Michelle had seen the truck Howard was driving and knew he had caused the accident but why? It didn't matter for a while as that act did save Michelle's life and Howard was fully prepared for this Alien/Russian attack as the bunker had enough food for two years and the water/power should also last that long.
Michelle and Emmett weren't always the nicest people to Howard who at times was furious at them for that attitude, if not for him the pair would be dead! The living conditions were decent enough but the atmosphere was always tense in the bunker, that was after just a few days and the trio may have to spend another year or two together?! Then things became even more unbearable as Michelle found some disturbing bits and pieces of things around the bunker such as a photo and necklace of Howard's daughter. But according to Emmett the photo was of a teen girl who had gone missing three years ago, she was never found so could this bunker have been a place where Howard brought kidnapped girls?! Howard may not appear so but he is one sharp man and nothing that happened in the bunker escaped his attention. He knew Michelle and Emmett had surmised what kind of man he may have been plus that once again the pair had been working on a way to flee the bunker. Which I didn't agree with, it's true Howard may have some dark secrets and couldn't fully be trusted but the alternative to staying there was going back to the real world where an almost certain death was waiting!
A goal was to always keep these reviews short and not to go over four paragraphs. The above one made it 3 1/2 so let me zip through the final twenty minutes with the first key event being the death of Emmett! As mentioned Howard had discovered he and Michelle would try another escape from the bunker, that was the last straw for Howard who pulled out a revolver and ended Emmett's life, I thought he was going to be thrown in a vat of acid instead which would have been so gruesome. The following day Howard found that Michelle was going through with that escape plan and the two did have one fight to the death! This time the acid was used and it was on Howard but he's a tough man to finish off, eventually he did succumb to his numerous injuries so both men have bitten the dust and after that Michelle couldn't get out of the bunker fast enough wearing a Hazmat suit. Outside was peaceful at first and to Michelle's surprise the air was now breathable again, at this point less than five minutes remained in the movie. Which had the most action of the film as this is when we saw the creatures that had attacked NYC in the first "Cloverfield" movie, they're at the bottom and in the trailer which is after the screenshots. We witnessed these creatures arriving on a spaceship and they tried to whisk to their ship an SUV Michelle was hiding out in but she was able to escape with a Molotov bomb she had created and soon zoomed away to safety but where could that be? Houston was to be Michelle's destination as she heard on the radio that city had beaten back the alien creatures, the film ended with Michelle driving towards the city. Many reviewers thought the ending was only so-so as we viewers were really left hanging and that with another twenty minutes so many questions could have been answered as there was no sequel to the movie. I agree with that as the ending was a bit quick though overall I really enjoyed the film and wonder why there couldn't have been a sequel to this? Which I do recommend and if you have $5 burning a hole in your pocket that three movie set of "Cloverfield" would be a wise purchase with that dough. Below is a trailer for the movie and following that is the second series that will be reviewed for today, after that is the final section of this post which is for a 1969 Japanese film.
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It didn't mean anything to me which is the DVD set you see in the first two above photos. It's for the 60th anniversary of the cult classic soap series "Dark Shadows" which began in 1966. From what I read it's the exact set that came out for the fiftieth anniversary which doesn't affect me as I don't have that mini boxset. This is the series I mentioned in the beginning which I said many of you have heard of but have never seen nor know much about, that included me. For years it's been a show I've wanted to check out but the massive box set of it is quite expensive as it's over $250 though you do get a lot of bang for your buck. Last week was at the store and there's plenty of new ghoulish box sets for the Halloween season but the good ones I already had. But at the last moment noticed this set for only $15, there was just one left so scooped it up and this was just the thing I was looking for! As it's a nice introduction to the series and if the price ever falls on the complete set then after watching this can determine if I want to move on to the other 1,189 episodes!!!! For 1,225 aired and this set has 36 of them plus a pair of three hour movies, all in all it adds up to be 21 hours of "Dark Shadows" and it's a series I will pace myself on to make it last for months. Have watched six episodes which total about 140 minutes, 22 1/2 for the show plus there's a minute or two of a cast member talking about what we're about to watch. The only negative is that none of the shows or bonus features are subbed so the screenshots below won't help in following that episode's story so when I talk abut things it's more about the overall series instead of individual episodes and I had no clue what to expect when I began on this.
It's a shame the boxset isn't subbed as when you view the screenshots you won't have much of an idea of what's taking place. Below are 28 screenshots, fourteen each from episodes 349 that aired on October 26, 1967 and show #418 that aired on January 31, 1968. Of course with that huge gap in episodes it's hard to follow the story but I've had no problems viewing them that way and consider each show to be a mini movie. For episode #349 Barnabas looked like an ancient man and that's because he had been 'cured' of his Vampirism! The woman with Barnabas is Dr. Julia Hoffman who thought she had found a potion to make him human again but there was a side effect. We all know that Vampires don't age so when Barnabas was no longer a creature of the night he aged decades in a matter of days! Many episodes later think the star of the series Barnabas was finally cured and though Johnathan Frid played the character so excellently Barnabas never wanted to become a Vampire. The other fourteen screenshots are from episode 418, Barnabas had traveled back in time from 1968 to 1897 and he had been a Vampire back then but had been unknown to the Collins family residing in Maine. In this episode Barnabas claimed to be from the British side of the family and met his step brother Quentin who is the man with such long sideburns, Quentin will become a Werewolf later on and couldn't stand the sight of his future brother when they first met. The woman wearing the green coat in the first set of screenshots is named Vicki and Barnabas was so in love with her but being a Vampire meant he couldn't wed her. But now that he isn't one he still couldn't marry Vicki as Barnabas is now a hundred years old and I have no idea how that will play out. So that wraps up this mini intro to a very known cult series and am so glad I found this boxset, if I went to the store the next day it may not have been there! In future posts will have so much more info about the stories and especially the characters. After the screenshots is a segment from episode 210 when Barnabas first became a character in the series, for it's first year it aired in B&W.
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For the third post in a row for these "My Current Watches" will end off with a mini review of the very popular "Red Peony" series of films. In the next post for this 'Current Watches' series will review the fourth film and then take a break to watch a few other kinds of films. I've had the first four movies of this eight film set for many years but had never seen the final four. But now have them all and decided why not watch them all but it could be tiring for you viewers and myself so will take a brief break after the fourth movie. In these posts half of what I talk about is the the entire series of movies up until this point and also the current movie, today's is titled "Red Peony Gambler: The Flower Cards Game" which was released on February 1, 1969. All eight films star Junko Fuji(Sumiko) who was 23 in age when this film came out and she still acts to this day, on December 1st she'll be hitting the age of 81. All of the films are somewhat similar as Junko's character Oryu is a wandering gambler that has no permanent residence, the above links have most of her bio info. The first film was set in Shikoku and some other locations not far away, the second movie was set in Joshu. This third film mainly took place in Nagoya with a few minutes set in Osaka. Let's get to this mini review and also appearing in this film was the huge star Ken Takakura who was in the first film but his character died at the end.
In this film Ken played a different character who like Oryu was a wandering Yakuza gambler but it wasn't one of his bigger roles as we didn't see him until the 31 minute mark, this was a 98 minute movie. There was an odd beginning to this film as the heroine Oryu(Junko) whose real name at one had been Ryuko Yano saved a blind eight year old girl from being run over by a train! We'll see this youngster once again and in some good news by the end of the film she was able to see again. Okimi was the girl's name, her mother was Otoki and of all things she had been traveling around Nagoya using Oryu's name.... and winning heavily at gambling dens! Soon Oryu became aware of that and was able to clear her name, Otoki wasn't so lucky as she ended up being killed by a Yakuza gang but that act was to help out Oryu and give thanks for helping her and Oikimi out. Nagoya was the setting of this film and the major Yakuza gambling families were planning a huge event to help pay for the restoration of a shrine. The intentions of the Nishinomaru clan were sincere and also a few of the smaller families but not the city's largest family, the Kimbara gang. Their devious plan was to pull a heist at the end of the gambling festival to steal the profits, the gang was named after its leader Kimbara who is in the seventh, eighth and many other screenshots below, he was played by Asao Koike who was one of my favorites from the 1960's/70's era.
The Nishinomaru clan was led by an older man named Sugiyama and at times he was also called Nishinomaru, that's him in the fourth and fifth screenshots. He quickly bonded with Oryu and she's become so respected in SW Japan for her gambling skills, she's also been in training to become a better fighter but I haven't seen a huge improvement since the first movie. In that one Oryu's goal was to avenge the death of her father Yano and did so, he was a Yakuza leader and gambler in Shikoku. At the time of her father's murder Oryu was eighteen in age and another goal of hers was to reform her father's old gang which Oryu hadn't been doing, Sugiyama reminded her that it's imperative to make that her number one priority. There seemed to be so many evil men back in the Meiji Era, this film took place right around 1900 and we did see a phone being used. Kambara was this film's dastardly Yakuza leader and while he himself didn't do the dirty work his huge force of henchmen did so. Kamabra wanted to marry off his stepdaughter Yae(ko) to a respected Yakuza elder to help his own standing but she wanted to marry Sugiyama's son Jiro which both families did not want to see happen. But with the help of Oryu the pair fled to Osaka and took sanctuary with Oryu's female Yakuza leader Kumatora who would be Sugiyama's assistant later on at the gambling festival. That's because the leader had been stabbed by a wandering Yakuza gambler named Hanaoka(Ken Takakura) and does all of this sound way too confusing?!
Hanaoka had helped Oryu when she was whisking away Jiro and Yae to Osaka, we didn't see enough of this character but at the end he helped Oryu, her friend Fujimatsu and Kumatora's clan defeat Kambara's gang once the gambling festival was concluded. During it the Nishinomaru leader Sugiyama had died from his stab wounds and the Kambara gang tried to steal the profits instead of that going to the restoration of the Atsuta Shrine. These films follow a similar story of Oryu getting close to an honest Yakuza leader and at the end when he's been wronged and killed to avenge his death. That happened once again in this movie and justice did prevail over evil, for once the man Oryu may have had a quiet crush on Hanaoka didn't die in the final battle. He did kill the Nishinomaru leader Sugiyama but it wasn't intentional and Hanaoka was the one who put up the money for the blind girl Okimi to have an operation to restore her sight. That'll conclude this review and as mentioned often don't want these to be longer than four paragraphs, just try to explain the story and major details without giving away too many spoilers. Will have one more of the posts before the month ends and I'm thinking for November to have two Japanese films in these posts but will take a break from the Red Peony series after the next post which will feature the fourth movie. Below are many screenshots to help you follow the story and after them is a trailer for the film.
