Took me a while to begin on this post as it's already September 8th and usually have one of these posts done by then. So the goal is to complete this by the 12th(did so a day early!) as I do a little bit each day such as the longish intro and then whatever American TV series I chose to view. Since May have had four of these posts a month or about one every 7-8 days but the odds are close to nil that'll happen for October and that's not a bad thing. Did mix things up again and will talk more about it below which is that instead of reviewing three movies will only be doing one. However will end up talking about a dozen films for I watched two movie series that totaled eleven and it'll be the first time I've squeezed so many films into one post. Of course I won't review each movie but look at the series as a whole, for five days watched two boxsets I had which featured those movies and will do that more in the future.
PS: Most movies and TV series I do end up giving a high grade to or highly recommend them. That's because I try to just review things that I enjoyed the most, I may watch seven films but only have three reviews in these posts which are the best of the batch. Try to keep things positive here as far as reviews go and also talking about my favorite women.
No recent favorites of mine have gone AWOL and for the most part 2026 has been a decent year for my top current women as 21 of them have had five or more posts for the year to date. One of them is Haruka but she won't be having any more for this year and perhaps will have just one more EVER so it doesn't appear as though she'll be the next woman to reach a hundred posts. Don't know the exact date it happened but ten days ago Haruka announced she had gotten married and that what a shocker that was! I would have bet my life on her not getting married until after she turned thirty in age, sure many others were also stunned about the news. I've been a huge Haruka fan for eight years and on the upcoming third All Time Faves list she would have ended up in the sixth spot, now I'm not so sure. I seldom do posts for those who have gotten married but would like to do a post before her position comes up on that list so will try do one other by the end of the year. Haruka's husband is 25 or three years younger than she is, he's a pro soccer player and though Japanese he's playing in Spain. That also happened with Erina Mano and she got married at the age of 29, we saw so little of her after the marriage.
One improvement over time was that I began to add in subbed screenshots and they make it so much easier to follow the story and my mini recap. But it was rare when I had them for the American TV series I open a post with and the biggest reason is that I view them on my TV with a DVD player. As most know laptops these days don't have disc drives so didn't think I could view them on my laptop but did find an external player that works. Have always had movie reviews with subbed pictures but the American TV series rarely had subbed screenshots, seeing as how I had bene having subs for foreign movies from Japan, Italy, etc. figured there had to be a way to do so for my boxsets and there was. But will still view everything on my TV and then take some screenshots from the best episode or two, I was a bit scatterbrained writing that so hope it made sense.
Have slowly been getting the massive 'To Watch' list of my American TV series boxset to shrink and because of that may have to reward myself with something new but nothing has piqued my interest lately. For the third time in two months one of these posts will include a mini review of the ultra fabulous "Grimm" series that aired from 2011-17, it being October wanted to have a horror series. Not sure if there will be another ghoulish series this month as I began on the second half of season eleven of "Gunsmoke", that's my all time favorite! Like most American TV shows went into this series blind, not a good strategy for buying boxsets but for the most part all have been Winners! Have read a few reviews and what others think is kind of up and down, some love the show like I do while others couldn't stop viewing it quick enough! I just wrapped up the third season, all have had 22 episodes in a season and this may have been the best of the trio. While it's a horror/supernatural series a lot of minor stories were added in so there's been some mystery and a lot of possible conspiracies added in. There's three seasons to go which have 57 episodes, I'm enjoying this show so much may finish it off before Thanksgiving! This series isn't at the level of "Supernatural" which is a must watch but no other horror show has been, as of now will give "Grimm" a high recommendation and after the pics will have a quick rundown on how season three was.
Don't want to keep repeating myself in these recaps so above are the links to what was written up about the first two seasons. The segments are easy to zip through and they would definitely help you out with what this show is about, read those first before this season three segment. Above is the boxset I purchased which was kind of inexpensive compared to other shows and I'm old fashioned as almost all I watch is on my TV/DVD player. In an oddity I've never had cable TV so that's why I know so little about American shows, to be honest don't think I've missed anything not having cable and was never interested in American shows for so long as I had hundreds of Japanese or Korean dramas to view. Will say once again that I need to start viewing and reviewing more of those dramas in these posts but still can't figure out a way to do so without recapping each episode. A plus to "Grimm" is that the cast has remained stable, no major characters have left and two that had PT roles were elevated to FT status in the last two seasons. Below are some promo pictures from season three and after them is a whole bunch of subbed screenshots though of course had to be selective with the ones I chose. Which were from the final episode and once again a season ended on a cliffhanger, actually a few of them so will be jumping back into the series in another week.
In those links you will find out where the name of Grimm came from, also short bios of the main characters and monsters. In the third picture below are the main eight characters, except for one all are quite likable and easy to root for. From the left is Russell Hornsby who plays the role of detective Hank Griffin and is the partner of this show's main star Nick Burkhardt. Next to him is the character Monroe and now that I think about his last name has never been revealed. That man is played by Silas Weir Mitchell and Monroe is a Wesen who is a human that can turn into a creature, he's a Blutbad which is similar to a Werewolf and more on Wesens in the next paragraph. On the show Monroe was married in the final season three episode to the woman he's standing next to in the picture. The character's name is Rosalee Calvert who is a Fuchsbau Wesen, she looks a bit like a Fox but not nearly as dangerous. Fourth up from the below photo is the blonde Clare Coffee whose character Adalind Schade became a FT member of the cast in this season. She too is a Wesen who can transform into a Hexenbiest which is very mean and gruesome looking but had lost her powers because of Nick in season one though Adalind regained them in the third season due to her being pregnant! Standing slightly behind Clare is Sasha Roiz and he plays the character of Sean Renard, he's a captain at the Portland PD who oversees Nick and Hank. Renard is also the father of Adalind's baby daughter though the pair really can't stand each other, Renard is a Zauerbiest type of Wesen who is quite powerful but does get along with the Grimm Nick.
To the left of Roiz is Bitsie Tulloch who plays Juliette Silverton in the show, she's Nick's girlfriend and I'm not much of a fan of the character, have found out the majority of "Grimm" fans aren't either! To her left is the hero detective Nick Burkhardt who is played by David Giuntoli, he's a Grimm which means he can see Wesen creatures unlike normal humans and becomes more powerful when fighting them. However in the final episode of season three Nick lost his Grimm powers but sure he'll get those back and that will be a key storyline to the fourth season. Last up for the eight major characters in Sergeant Drew Wu, he's played by Reggie Lee(Cruz) and I like him best of all. Wu is a normal human and unlike his peers to date has no clue of what Wesen are but have a strong inkling he will in the fourth season and he's the King of satirical one liners in this show! There's also one more key character who wasn't introduced until the season's 18th episode, her name is Theresa Trubel and she'll be an on/off character for the upcoming season. Trubel is also a Grimm and is only 21 years old, Nick had been teaching her the ropes but because he's lost his powers not sure how her storyline will turn out. When you say Wesen the W sounds like a V because it's a German word and we met many different creatures in season three. Such as an Aswang who is a Filipino monster that can suck the fetus out of a mother's womb! We also met a Naiad who is similar to a Mermaid but much more dangerous, also new for the season was a Wildermann that is like Bigfoot and there's no end to these creatures! Two others were a El Cucuy and that's from a Spanish urban legend where the creature is like a Bogeyman and lastly was a Manticore that is a half lion, half scorpion that originated in Persia and there were about five other new creatures for the season.
Last segment and the bottom twenty pics below are screenshots from episode 22 which was the finale for season three. So much took place in that episode which means there's about five cliffhangers to begin off season four! The wedding of Monroe and Rosalee took place which ended in a disaster as two Grimms, Nick and Trubel, were at the wedding which was packed with Wesen! But shortly after Nick lost his powers and that was because he had slept with the Hexenbiest Adalind but she had used a special potion to appear as his girlfriend Juliette, she used another potion to absorb Nick's powers while they had sex! While the wedding was going on Nick and Hank's captain Sean Renard was shot by a Wesen at Nick's house, the new Grimm Trubel killed the beast but Renard is in critical condition. Whew, then there's a few other things that tie in with those so the first few episodes of season four should be jam packed with action! Even though there's many major characters and storylines never once has the show been confusing and I am really enjoying this series immensely! So I definitely recommend this show if you're into action, monsters, suspense, mystery and I plan on looking for a few more shows similar to this and "Supernatural", if you know of any leave a comment. The screenshots below should help you understand a bit of what took place and after them is a video that shows all of the Wesen who appeared in the third season.
Did say in the intro wouldn't be featuring any actress but it's become an tradition so will have this minor section for one. Except for this mini segment won't be talking about my all time favorite TV series "Gunsmoke" in this post but will in the next for this "My Current Watches" series, began on the second half of season eleven last night. The middle seasons of this twenty season series saw a drop in ratings but would soon rebound and be in the top five of another five seasons. I have no idea why the ratings saw a decrease as the past two have been my favorite seasons, there's been much more action and the intensity level has often been sky high, also the other three main characters besides Marshal Dillon have gotten more screen time.
Have talked about Amanda Blake in five previous posts and it was always after a mini review of "Gunsmoke". But have never posted many photos from the show and that's because I didn't know how to take screenshots from a regular DVD and explained what happened earlier in the post. So decided to have a few of Amanda for today and her role was of Miss Kitty Russell who owned the Long Branch Saloon in Dodge City, Kansas. Back in the 1870's a woman owning such a place was unheard of but Kitty turned things around and it's the most popular watering hole in the area! Kitty doesn't put up with any BS and she's dealt with so many incidents such as being kidnapped twice and also having to go on trial in a Kangaroo court for some murders! Below are some season eleven screenshots and will be including some in every future post for this series, this is the final season in B&W so that'll be such a shock seeing Kitty in color after almost 400 episodes! Amanda is one of my all time favorite women even though she sadly died even right around when I and many of you readers were born, she's not far away from being my top woman of all time and that could happen sooner than later! Screenshots don't do her justice but Amanda was such an attractive woman and very few in history have topped her figure, not easy to tell as she wears clothes from the 1870's but doesn't she still have such an alluring vibe to her? There's a clip from an episode after the pictures which is followed by today's movie reviews, there's a dozen in three mini sections!
Don't think I can do this too often but the first two of three movie reviews will be for an entire series of films that total up to be eleven. I have a bunch of movie boxsets, the third photo above is the cover for this mini review and all five movies share the same plot so will talk about them all at once. The movie after this one will also be for a series and the only other time I did something like this was for "The Conjuring" movies. In the future may be doing a review like this for the "Chucky" series, I bought that boxset five months ago but haven't started on it yet but it being Horror Month may do so very soon. Sure most of you reading this have heard of and seen the "Final Destination" film series, the set I have has five films but a sixth came out after the set was released and there's another film set to come out in a year or so. What I did for five consecutive nights was to watch one of these movies followed by a film in the next section, in all they would add up to be ~155 minutes. All of the five "Final Destination" films were very good with my favorites being the second followed by the first. I bought this set earlier in the year, watched the first two movies but never talked about them. So viewed them again as I had forgotten most of what happened and what's hard to believe is that the first film came out 26 years ago! Where has the time gone to and this may be the last time I ever review a movie without having screenshots from the DVD, am short in time to take many of them plus had these photos as I knew this series would be reviewed sooner or later.
The first nine pics below are from the first film, the other six are from the second and the trailer for that will follow these pics. When this first film came out in 2000 the "X-Files" was still airing and the writer sent in the story idea for it being an episode but two of the producers/writers thought so highly of it they decided to make a film which was such an unexpected massive hit! And so weren't the next four and the films made about ten times more than the budgets which has to be so rare but the movies were unique which doesn't happen often enough these days. All five films share the same theme which is a simple one.... You Can't Cheat DEATH!!!! When the Grim Reaper 👺 says it's time to move to Heaven or Hell you don't have a say in the matter but if something should prevent your death it won't be for long! Which is the main story for the first and other movies in the series where a person has foreseen a tragedy where he or she may die along with many others. In the first "Final Destination" movie a group of forty high school seniors were traveling to Paris from NYC for their senior trip but just for the French Club students, of the forty a pair were teachers. The second pic below shows the semi-hero Alex Browning, a few minutes before takeoff he had dozed off for a few seconds and had a vision of the plane exploding a minute after takeoff! Of course the other 260 passengers, including his high school mates, didn't believe Alex who got into a scuffle with a student and quickly a melee broke out. Alex, the other student and his girlfriend, three other students and a teacher were escorted from the plane, if the seven want to see Paris they'll have to take a later flight.
As you can see in the third and fourth below photos the vision of Alex was dead-on as the plane exploded while taking off, there were zero survivors. Alex did become a prime suspect in the tragedy for how could he have known what would take place but of course the FBI couldn't charge him with any crimes. But soon the horrific deaths of the survivors began to take place, first the best friend of Alex somehow strangled himself to death in the shower(!), then the girlfriend of the student Alex tangled with was run over and killed by a truck! The only person to believe Alex was a girl named Clear Rivers(Ali Larter) and the pair spent the rest of the film trying to prevent the other three from dying but two more did. The pair surmised that Death was killing the students in the order they would have died on the plane, the same was true for the other four films except in "Final Destination 2" where it went in reverse order. Nothing Alex or Clear did could prevent the deaths, at the end of the film just the two were alive. By the time of the second film only Clear was alive and had checked herself into an asylum as to her it was the only place Death couldn't reach her! But in the second film another tragedy did happen and this time it was on an interstate highway, a young woman named Kimberly Corman saw a vision like Alex did and because of that a dozen people were not involved in the massive accident. Kimberly was played by A.J. Cook and I really like her, she has a starring role in the "Criminal Minds" series and need to resume watching that, that show began in 2005 and this film came out in 2003.
In conclusion even though the 'hero' of the five movies had a vision of a horrific accident/tragedy in the end run they were unable to prevent themselves or anyone else from being slain by the Grim Reaper! Those deaths were among the best I've ever seen in movies, many times there's this Chain Reaction of minor events happening that result in a gruesome death and it's worth watching the films just for those. The tragedies in the other three films I viewed were of a bridge collapsing, a huge crash at a race track and perhaps my favorite was in the third film when a roller coaster went off its tracks! If you love action, gory yet unique deaths and intensity this is a film series that I recommend, this set of five movies only goes for $13 so how can you go wrong? Glad I chose this series and would like to view a few others this month that I've never seen such as the "Chucky" movies but don't know what else would go well with those but sure I'll find something and as mentioned would like to hear some comments or recommendations from you readers. After the pictures is a trailer for the second film which was my favorite but all five are definitely worth a view.
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Here's perhaps the most unknown set of movies I've reviewed to date, there were six in the series that were released from 1943-45. The films were just ~65 minutes in length and would view one after a "Final Destination" movie, they were so different yet both were interesting watches. Until a few weeks ago had never heard of this film series but it was much more than that as it was based upon a series of novels plus had been a very popular radio show with 511 episodes. Think this movie series was planned to continue on past 1945 as it was kind of popular but so wasn't the major star and and a few others who appeared in the films. That major star was Lon Chaney Jr. and he did he appear in so many horror flicks from 1940-70, he was the original Wolfman plus was in many other known horror movies. So I expected these six films to be in that genre but that wasn't the case as they were murder mysteries and perhaps they turned out better because of that. Of course can't talk about all six movies in one segment but will have a quickie overview of the series which for the most part had the same storylines but do have screenshots below of the third film "Dead Man's Eyes" which I thought was the best though all were so interesting and I hated to see the series end!
Chaney was the star of all six "Inner Sanctum" movies but his character was never the same, that too may have been a positive for the films. But in five of the six movies the plot was very similar as his character was accused of a murder though he never killed anyone! The only time it was different was in the fifth film when his character Jeff Carter did kill a person but it was needed to be done against such a greedy and deadly man. Jeff was a doctor and his boss Roger Graham had used an antidote Jeff was developing for influenza and had sold it before it was finished. That resulted in some deaths including Jeff's young son, Graham had sold the unfinished medicine for the sake of making barrels of money so the death was somewhat justified. In the other five movies a person close to Chaney's character had been killed and he was usually the most likely suspect so he had to prove his innocence which wasn't always easy to do. Besides Chaney there were some other known stars or at least to me as I love these oldie movies from the 1940's and 50's. Some of their names were Milburn Stone who was in all twenty seasons of "Gunsmoke", Evelyn Ankers who was in the original "Werewolf" 1941 movie and Patricia Morrison who lived to the age of 103! For the most part there was very little action in these movies and of course not much violence either but the stories were so interesting and the 65 minutes would fly right by. This is an easy series to obtain and there's also a half hour documentary with the boxset so of course it gets a recommendation from me.
In "Dead Man's Eyes" Chaney played the role of a talented painter named David Stuart who was engaged to a very attractive woman named Heather Hayden played by Jean Parker. Dave was also a favorite of Heather's wealthy father though he never went to the man for money, Dave and Heather's future was looking quite rosy. In this film Dave was painting a portrait of another attractive woman whose name was Tanya, playing her was a Venezuelan actress named Acquanetta. Dave's eyes would often get sore/tired from so much painting and he would often dab some medicine into them, there's a screenshot of that below. There's also one where he accidentally put some acetic acid into his eyes and that was because Tanya had switched the bottle with medicine with that one, she didn't do it on purpose. Dave and us viewers knew that but not Heather's father who was beyond furious, especially when Dave's condition became worse and he could be permanently blind! But there could be a cure which was to transfer fresh corneas into Dave's eyes but they would have to come from a recently deceased person plus the operation had to be much sooner than later!
To make a longish story short Heather's father Stanley was killed one night by Tanya's jealous boyfriend Alan. Coming into the father's study shortly after was the now blind Dave and he was accused of the murder but how could a blind man do such an evil act?! He couldn't which was eventually proved by an ingenious homicide detective named Drury and at the end there was justice for Alan was arrested and Dave could see again as he received fresh corneas from Heather's father, think the pair did get married but the film ended before that. That mini review may not have sounded overly interesting but it truly was and the first nine screenshots below are how each of the six films opened up, it was an eerie beginning but the films themselves weren't so eerie but all were darn good! After the screenshots is a trailer for the "Inner Sanctum" series and did say Chaney was the first "Wolfman" in the Universal series of films so that would be a good one to review for this Horror Month!
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Once again for the finale have a "Red Peony" movie, this is the second of eight that were released between 1968 and 1971. Above is the link to the recap for the first movie and at the time said I would review all eight movies, that's a lot but think I can do it but perhaps not in eight consecutive posts. Instead of having a regular review with many details will try having a quick overview of the entire movie series. Not like the above two film series which were easier to talk about in one segment but a little bit about the current movie and a few other musings about the series. Now that I think about the Japanese had many more of these longish movie series compared to other countries which at times can be a positive and I enjoy watching movie series as you may know by now. The official title of this second film was "Red Peony Gambler: Gambler's Obligation" which was released on November 22, 1968. Junko Fuji starred in all eight films and she was a very respected actress back in the late 60's until the mid 1970's. She then retired to raise a family but made a very successful comeback two decades later, I've seen her in a few of those newer films and she's still an extremely respected actress.
That first post has much info about the main character Oryu, that's the name the 23 year old woman now goes by and she had just changed it from Ryuko Yano as she says above. In the first film Oryu had been hunting for the man who murdered her father five years prior, the culprit was killed but to Oryu's disappointment she wasn't the one who did the deed. In the months after Oryu had been roaming the regions of SE Japan honing her fighting and gambling skills. The year is 1884, the 17th of the Meiji Era and Oryu had been staying at the HQ of a Yakuza leader named Togasaki, in the fourth through seventh screenshots below. Oryu's father was also a Yakuza leader but after his death she disbanded the family though still has plans on reviving it. Not all Yakuza are bad people as Oryu has shown and also a decent person was Togasaki who treated all those in the Joshu region fairly. The main industry there was Silk, the entire process of growing, picking, weaving, delivering and selling was all done there so it was the main jobs of almost everyone in the region. Which of course meant many unsavory characters wanted a piece of the pie such as the loan shark Kuramochi who had swindled many farmers out of their deeds and sold those to an aspiring Yakuza leader named Kasamatsu. Whose gang eventually killed the respected leader Togasaki as he was the only person standing in the way of Kasamatsu becoming wealthy and controlling the Silk industry, all of these movies have such a dastardly villain! Soon Kasamatsu had many of the farmer's deeds and they plus their families were working for him, when Oryu discovered that it meant his days as the new Yakuza leader wwre numbered!
The main hero in the eight films Oryu never puts up with such lowlifes as Kasamatsu and she is such a likable woman so never has any problems gathering men to fight for her though Oryu would rather do her revenge battles solo. Revenge is what Oryu wanted for the murder of her friend Togasaki and it was no problem assembling others to join in Oryu's crusade as the farmers in Joshu considered Togasaki to be a friend even though he was a Yakuza leader. Each one of these Red Peony films will feature a star male actor, some appear more than once though their characters are different. In this film the guest star was Koji Tsuruta who was also in the fourth film. This is the third film I've reviewed in the last two months that Koji appeared in, he was one of my favorite actors from 1960-75 and died an early death at the age of 62 in 1987. That's not too young but so many actors/actresses from Japan often lived to be well over eighty in age. He played the role of a wandering nomad named Shutaro Kazama and he bonded so well with Oryu but we didn't see him until the halfway mark of this 95 minute film. Many viewers thought this was better than the first film but I enjoyed that one more, a key reason was that the role of Shutaro wasn't large enough though this was still a fine film.
The screenshots below help you follow the action well as they're all subbed and go in order of the action. Once again to make a long story short in the end Oryu, with the help of Shutaro and the farmers. were able to take down the evil Kasamatsu Yakuza clan. Oryu is a solid fighter who will get better with each passing movie but she often does need help to defeat a gang or small group of hoodlums. But a major reason for reviewing this series is that I haven't seen any movie past the fourth so perhaps after that there are some changes with Oryu that I'm not aware of yet. One thing that I think will be the same is that at the end of each film the male star will die in Oryu's arms, that happened in the first movie and as the bottom screenshot shows it did with this movie's male lead Shutaro. In the first paragraph did say in these reviews half would be about the current film while the other half would be about the entire series and of the main stars. So will watch the next two films very soon though I've already seen them a few times, am eager to get to the fifth through eighth movies and Junko Fuji starred in another gambling series after this one ended so that may be worth checking out. After the screenshots is the original trailer for the movie and the second post for 'My Current Watches for October' should be in a week, possibly two more days after that estimate.
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