Red Riding 1974 (2009): does this count as a movie or a part of a British series? It was made for television. Short version: novice reporter investigates the rape/torture/murder of little girls in a mid-70s northern England rife with corruption, official murder, and torture.
It's well-made and well-acted, with Daniel Radcliffe working overtime to prove he isn't just Harry Potter. The Yorkshire accents and dialect are so thick that I finally turned on the subtitles. It's also so completely grimdark, violent, and over-the-top conspiratorial that I was left with little desire to see the next three movies/seasons. I'm told that they're even darker and less well put-together. This one comes to a conclusion and I think that's it for me.
I'm worried we'll see more of, at least, elements of this in the near future, around the globe.
WATCHMEN (Chapters 1 & 2): This new animated feature is the best adaptation of Watchmen that we have ever seen or are likely to see in the future. It's like the live action movie, the "motion comic" and the Tales of the Black Freighter cartoon all rolled into one. It is the most faithful adaptation of the graphic novel I have ever seen. It has been less than a year since I last revisitedWatchmen and didn't think I'd be in the mood to do so again so soon, but it just sucked me in.
ANIMATED DOCTOR WHO: Lately I've been working my way through the more recent of the Second Doctor's animated "missing" storylines, Starting with The Power of the Daleks. From there I moved on to The Macra Terror, The Faceless Ones, and last night I started The Evil of the Daleks. From there I plan to go on to Fury from the Deep. (Yes, I know there are some other serials which have individual episodes animated, but these are the ones I'm currently interested in rewatching.)
TWILIGHT ZONE (4th Season): Late last year I finished up watching seasons 1-3, 5 and lamented never having seen the fourth season (except for one episode). Then Kelvin told me that SyFy runs a 24-hour marathon on New Year's Day which includes fourth season episodes. I set my DVR to record all fourth season epsides, and recorded five of them (although only one from SyFy). One of the ones I recorded was the one I had seen before, the one with Robert Duvall and the doll house. When I saw it the first time years ago, parts of it were broadcast in color, but the version I recorded was entirely in b&w. I quite enjoyed seeing episodes I had never seen before. (Fourth season episodes are each an hour long.) I've left my DVR set, so if any others pop into the schedule of any station I receive, I'll get them.
THE LONE RANGER: I finally finished watching all 221 epsiodes, which I began doing in April of last year. That's five season, but it's really more like eight because seasons one, three and four are 52 episodes each. Whereas most series would run, say, 26 episodes, The Lone Ranger would run 52 in a row, then repeat 52 in a row, before airing any new episodes. I don't know of any other TV show with a schedule like that. I had a pilgimage to "Lone Ranger Rock" planned for earlier this month, but I cancelled it because of the wildfires.
THE ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN: After finsihing up The Lone Ranger, I was still in the mood for some 1950s color heroic television, so I started re-watching The Adventures of Superman starting with season three. I didn't watch Superman reruns too often when I was little, but I bought the entire series when it became available on DVD in the early 2Ks. When I watched it the first time through I remmeber being anxious for the color episodes. Now that I've started with the color episodes I find them kind of silly and think the b&w ones were better. (I certainly prefer Phyllis coates to Noel Neill.)
Watchmen (Before & After)
I just finished re-reading Watchmen for the first time in many years. Every time I read I notice some new detail or nuance I had never noticed before…
THE LONE RANGER: I finally finished watching all 221 epsiodes, which I began doing in April of last year. That's five seasons, but it's really more like eight because seasons one, three and four are 52 episodes each. Whereas most series would run, say, 26 episodes, The Lone Ranger would run 52 in a row, then repeat 52 in a row, before airing any new episodes. I don't know of any other TV show with a schedule like that.
The Lone Ranger runs on one of our Roku stations here, but I'd had no plans on re-watching it---there were just too many episodes. But, a couple of weeks ago, when there was absolutely nothing else better on at the time to watch, I viewed three or four episodes, and I was hooked. I set the show to record, and I've now finished viewing a little over half of the first season.
I'll follow it through to the end---except I'll slip the season with the fifty-odd episodes with John Hart as the Masked Man. I've seen three or four of those, and Mr. Hart just isn't the Lone Ranger. And it's more than just my usual "the first guy who played the rôle was better" attitude. Hart is just too wooden as the Masked Man. He plays the part as stalwart and unyielding, as I imagine he (or the Wrather people) thought the part of a hero was supposed to be played. Hart's stalwart Lone Ranger never lapses into Dudley Dooright caricature, but runs up to it on occasion.
Clayton Moore's performance contains all the usual hero traits---decency, courage, indomitability---but also invests the Ranger with humanity. He may not always accept, but he understands others' shortcomings, and often takes risks to help people rise to find courage or honesty. But the thing that Mr. Moore brings most to the Lone Ranger is his sincerity. The scripts often have him saying lines that would come off as corny or overblown, but Moore delivers them with such underplayed sincerity that you don't laugh or find it ridiculous. He makes it believable, and thus, he makes the Lone Ranger believable.
Case in point, in an episode I saw the other day, "Gold Fever", first aired on 13 April 1950, the Ranger and Tonto are after an outlaw, Ox Martin, who robbed a stage of its U.S. mail. The Masked Man remarks, "Yes, Tonto He's endangered the reliability and integrity of the United States government Postal Service."
I doubt any other actor, and certainly not John Hart, could deliver that line and not have the audience rolling its eyes or snickering. But Clayton Moore pulls it off.
Much like the way I would watch to see how long it took Dr. Doug Phillips to loosen his necktie after every time-jump on The Time Tunnel, one of the moments I wait for in every episode of The Lone Ranger is when he encounters someone for the first time. That person will always remark something to the effect of "If you aren't an outlaw, why do you wear a mask?", and I always get a kick out of how the Ranger casually deflects the question, usually with a simple "I have my reasons," or "This mask represents the same thing as a sheriff's star." Toward the end of the series' run, the show acknowleged the trope, and when asked about the mask, the Ranger would smile and reply, "I hear that a lot."
It doesn't take long to understand why Clayton Moore was the Lone Ranger. The other day, I saw a YouTube video of the ceremony at which Mr. Moore received his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, in 1987. (He's the only person so honoured to have both his name and that of the character he portrayed on the star.) The crowd was huge, and the fans jockeyed for their two minutes with Moore, one attendee said something that I'd have given a month's pay to have thought of, if I had been there.
"You know how at the end of every episode, how the people you helped watch you and Tonto ride off, and they say, 'I wanted to thank him.'? Well, we've finally gotten that chance."
The Baron > Commander BensonJanuary 30, 2025 at 3:44pm
I've never actually seen the Lone Ranger's TV show. While it's true that it went off the air several years before I was born, it seems like the sort of show that should have been re-run in syndication for decades on local UHF stations, Ibut I have no recollection of it having been so, at least not where I grew up.
Nevertheless, through cutural osmosis, I knew who the Ranger and Tonto were, and Silver and Scout, and of course, who Moore and Silverheels were. Clayton Moore was the Lone Ranger for me, even though I'd never seen him play the part.
Jeff, thanks for the alert on Watchmen Chapters 1 and 2. I had been waiting for chapter 2 to stream. Last night I watched chapter 1 on MAX (included) and chapter 2 on Prime for a fee.
As you say, it's the very best version yet, except for the original story.
Replies
Red Riding 1974 (2009): does this count as a movie or a part of a British series? It was made for television. Short version: novice reporter investigates the rape/torture/murder of little girls in a mid-70s northern England rife with corruption, official murder, and torture.
It's well-made and well-acted, with Daniel Radcliffe working overtime to prove he isn't just Harry Potter. The Yorkshire accents and dialect are so thick that I finally turned on the subtitles. It's also so completely grimdark, violent, and over-the-top conspiratorial that I was left with little desire to see the next three movies/seasons. I'm told that they're even darker and less well put-together. This one comes to a conclusion and I think that's it for me.
I'm worried we'll see more of, at least, elements of this in the near future, around the globe.
WATCHMEN (Chapters 1 & 2): This new animated feature is the best adaptation of Watchmen that we have ever seen or are likely to see in the future. It's like the live action movie, the "motion comic" and the Tales of the Black Freighter cartoon all rolled into one. It is the most faithful adaptation of the graphic novel I have ever seen. It has been less than a year since I last revisited Watchmen and didn't think I'd be in the mood to do so again so soon, but it just sucked me in.
ANIMATED DOCTOR WHO: Lately I've been working my way through the more recent of the Second Doctor's animated "missing" storylines, Starting with The Power of the Daleks. From there I moved on to The Macra Terror, The Faceless Ones, and last night I started The Evil of the Daleks. From there I plan to go on to Fury from the Deep. (Yes, I know there are some other serials which have individual episodes animated, but these are the ones I'm currently interested in rewatching.)
TWILIGHT ZONE (4th Season): Late last year I finished up watching seasons 1-3, 5 and lamented never having seen the fourth season (except for one episode). Then Kelvin told me that SyFy runs a 24-hour marathon on New Year's Day which includes fourth season episodes. I set my DVR to record all fourth season epsides, and recorded five of them (although only one from SyFy). One of the ones I recorded was the one I had seen before, the one with Robert Duvall and the doll house. When I saw it the first time years ago, parts of it were broadcast in color, but the version I recorded was entirely in b&w. I quite enjoyed seeing episodes I had never seen before. (Fourth season episodes are each an hour long.) I've left my DVR set, so if any others pop into the schedule of any station I receive, I'll get them.
THE LONE RANGER: I finally finished watching all 221 epsiodes, which I began doing in April of last year. That's five season, but it's really more like eight because seasons one, three and four are 52 episodes each. Whereas most series would run, say, 26 episodes, The Lone Ranger would run 52 in a row, then repeat 52 in a row, before airing any new episodes. I don't know of any other TV show with a schedule like that. I had a pilgimage to "Lone Ranger Rock" planned for earlier this month, but I cancelled it because of the wildfires.
THE ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN: After finsihing up The Lone Ranger, I was still in the mood for some 1950s color heroic television, so I started re-watching The Adventures of Superman starting with season three. I didn't watch Superman reruns too often when I was little, but I bought the entire series when it became available on DVD in the early 2Ks. When I watched it the first time through I remmeber being anxious for the color episodes. Now that I've started with the color episodes I find them kind of silly and think the b&w ones were better. (I certainly prefer Phyllis coates to Noel Neill.)
THE LONE RANGER: I finally finished watching all 221 epsiodes, which I began doing in April of last year. That's five seasons, but it's really more like eight because seasons one, three and four are 52 episodes each. Whereas most series would run, say, 26 episodes, The Lone Ranger would run 52 in a row, then repeat 52 in a row, before airing any new episodes. I don't know of any other TV show with a schedule like that.
The Lone Ranger runs on one of our Roku stations here, but I'd had no plans on re-watching it---there were just too many episodes. But, a couple of weeks ago, when there was absolutely nothing else better on at the time to watch, I viewed three or four episodes, and I was hooked. I set the show to record, and I've now finished viewing a little over half of the first season.
I'll follow it through to the end---except I'll slip the season with the fifty-odd episodes with John Hart as the Masked Man. I've seen three or four of those, and Mr. Hart just isn't the Lone Ranger. And it's more than just my usual "the first guy who played the rôle was better" attitude. Hart is just too wooden as the Masked Man. He plays the part as stalwart and unyielding, as I imagine he (or the Wrather people) thought the part of a hero was supposed to be played. Hart's stalwart Lone Ranger never lapses into Dudley Dooright caricature, but runs up to it on occasion.
Clayton Moore's performance contains all the usual hero traits---decency, courage, indomitability---but also invests the Ranger with humanity. He may not always accept, but he understands others' shortcomings, and often takes risks to help people rise to find courage or honesty. But the thing that Mr. Moore brings most to the Lone Ranger is his sincerity. The scripts often have him saying lines that would come off as corny or overblown, but Moore delivers them with such underplayed sincerity that you don't laugh or find it ridiculous. He makes it believable, and thus, he makes the Lone Ranger believable.
Case in point, in an episode I saw the other day, "Gold Fever", first aired on 13 April 1950, the Ranger and Tonto are after an outlaw, Ox Martin, who robbed a stage of its U.S. mail. The Masked Man remarks, "Yes, Tonto He's endangered the reliability and integrity of the United States government Postal Service."
I doubt any other actor, and certainly not John Hart, could deliver that line and not have the audience rolling its eyes or snickering. But Clayton Moore pulls it off.
Much like the way I would watch to see how long it took Dr. Doug Phillips to loosen his necktie after every time-jump on The Time Tunnel, one of the moments I wait for in every episode of The Lone Ranger is when he encounters someone for the first time. That person will always remark something to the effect of "If you aren't an outlaw, why do you wear a mask?", and I always get a kick out of how the Ranger casually deflects the question, usually with a simple "I have my reasons," or "This mask represents the same thing as a sheriff's star." Toward the end of the series' run, the show acknowleged the trope, and when asked about the mask, the Ranger would smile and reply, "I hear that a lot."
It doesn't take long to understand why Clayton Moore was the Lone Ranger. The other day, I saw a YouTube video of the ceremony at which Mr. Moore received his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, in 1987. (He's the only person so honoured to have both his name and that of the character he portrayed on the star.) The crowd was huge, and the fans jockeyed for their two minutes with Moore, one attendee said something that I'd have given a month's pay to have thought of, if I had been there.
"You know how at the end of every episode, how the people you helped watch you and Tonto ride off, and they say, 'I wanted to thank him.'? Well, we've finally gotten that chance."
I've never actually seen the Lone Ranger's TV show. While it's true that it went off the air several years before I was born, it seems like the sort of show that should have been re-run in syndication for decades on local UHF stations, Ibut I have no recollection of it having been so, at least not where I grew up.
Nevertheless, through cutural osmosis, I knew who the Ranger and Tonto were, and Silver and Scout, and of course, who Moore and Silverheels were. Clayton Moore was the Lone Ranger for me, even though I'd never seen him play the part.
Jeff, thanks for the alert on Watchmen Chapters 1 and 2. I had been waiting for chapter 2 to stream. Last night I watched chapter 1 on MAX (included) and chapter 2 on Prime for a fee.
As you say, it's the very best version yet, except for the original story.
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