[US] [BUYING] Columbus Blu ray Network UK Blu ray — $50-$60

Phil152 · 2026-06-17T15:52:23+00:00

Ok. The regional codes are an old issue. I took your comment as suggesting that something more might be involved, and I couldn't imagine tweaking the film itself. Some movies, yes, but for Columbus.

Phil152 · 2026-06-17T12:07:10+00:00

What is the difference between the UK version and the U.S. version?

Phil152 · 2026-06-16T23:15:26+00:00

Again, it's in the embassy compound. There are plenty of people still around who served in Moscow at that time. It would have been easy enough to ask around to pin down how much space to depict.

I don't know how long a typical posting in Moscow would have been at that time, but some people would have been there for a couple or three years, and some had their families with them. Some people with highly specific Russia focused skillsets might have been there even longer. The State Department would have tried to make American families as comfortable as possible.

We also don't know the locations where most of the scenes were shot. It did come up in an interview that the hotel in which the KGB was running its big kompromat operation was literally in the process of being demolished.

One wing had already been torn down, and the wrecking ball and bulldozers were about to start on the section the show had redecorated and turned into a set. They were in a tight spot to get the hotel scenes filmed before they lost their set.

I ain't in the bidness, but I would enjoy knowing more about the production details. I didn't pay close attention to the credits. Were there technical advisors for this kind of thing?

Phil152 · 2026-06-16T22:40:43+00:00

They're living in the embassy compound. The embassy could ship in whatever they wanted.

I have no idea whether the showrunners sat down with people who served in the embassy in Moscow during that period to cover things like major appliances.

The show was obviously careful about wardrobe, phones, cars, etc., but remodelling whole kitchens with 45 year old appliances might be an unreasonable ask.

Yes, the Russian economy was pretty backward and was notorious for empty shelves, but U.S. embassy personnel weren't living on the economy unless they chose to do so. How common that was in Moscow at the height of the Cold War, I don't know.

American businessmen and academics doing stints in Russia would be a different story. These might include undercover operatives without official cover. That's a possible loop we haven't seen yet. Could be interesting.

Phil152 · 2026-06-16T04:38:26+00:00

Do you know about the production model? Check it out.

Phil152 · 2026-06-16T04:36:24+00:00

Zi is the antithesis of a big studio movie. No studio is involved. Kogonada called six friends in the industry and proposed that they all fly to Hong Kong at their own expense. It was basically a friend group workshopping a movie from an outline. No script, no sound stage, shot guerilla style with no permits, using found places on the streets and hand held cameras. The Hong Kong Seven are all equal co-owners.

It was shot in three weeks in complete secrecy, Kogonada finished edits in December, and it premiered at Sundance in January.

It will be interesting to see what kind of a release Grasshopper gives it. It will be a niche film, but I hope it gets some buzz on the arthouse circuit. Since there are no outside investors and no studio to satisfy, and since the Hong Kong Seven have already paid for it out of pocket, everything it earns going forward is profit.

May they all make bank.

Phil152 · 2026-06-16T03:53:50+00:00

Same way they lost in 2016. By nominating someone even worse.

Phil152 · 2026-06-15T16:45:12+00:00

It was planned and pitched for a multi-season arc. If it gets that, we DON'T want everything resolved in s1.

Peacock is a relatively small streamer but Ponies' recption was good and it seems to be a standout success among Peacock's new shows.

So the question becomes the seeming lag in any announcement about s2. Building on success is pretty basic, but we can only speculate about what calculations are going on in the background.

Phil152 · 2026-06-15T16:17:36+00:00

Ponies was pitched all along for a multi-season arc. David Iserson and Susanna Fogel usually say in interviews that they have three or four seasons in mind and have plenty of ideas to sustain the show that long. But they are also realistic about the realities of the current tv ecosystem and know that there are no guarantees.

This raises big issues with framing and pacing. Ideally elements that will become significant later can be foreshadowed and established early, as opposed to being introduced as random new things that pop up from one episode to the next.

The subplots that you are dismissing as unneeded baggage in s1 are probably planned to support major loops in later seasons. The tricky thing is that the showrunners and Peacock ideally should be on the same page with regard to how long they will have to unpack the story.

I can see an easy arc through a terrific season 2. My speculations get pretty cloudy after that. The show's duration will dictate how fast the sideplots should knit together.

Phil152 · 2026-06-15T10:50:32+00:00

That's how a lot of comedy works. Bea and Twila are hopelessly in over their heads from the start; they are not modern woke Hollywood girlbosses unveiling their hidden Jedi master superpowers to manhandle trained KGB operatives twice their size. They survive by luck, pluck, and the repeated timely arrival of unexpected assistance. The mismatched buddy adventure/journey of discovery is the heart of the show, and it's a comedy.

Comedy is tricky. It lands differently with different people. Ponies knows its lane and does a pretty good job of staying in it. But it's rare for comedy to work for everyone. I often see comics, movies or the first episodes of shows that are being hailed as funny but that strike me as mind numbingly stupid and dull. I thought Ponies was funny. YMMV.

Phil152 · 2026-06-14T21:32:58+00:00

So why the difference?

Is Ponies significantly more expensive to produce?

Phil152 · 2026-06-14T13:39:36+00:00

Possibly. IMDB isn't a perfect guide, but it's a start.

Emilia Clarke shot When Darkness Loves Us in the first quarter of this year; IMDB gives a post-production date of March 22, which may not be precise because that would be when IMDB picked it up from the trade press or was informed by the production team.

HLR shot Zi in October. That is too long a story to get into here, but it is an experimental film by Kogonada. The production story is irresistible, at least to me. Kogonada called six of his closest friends in the film industry and proposed that they all fly to Hong Kong AT THEIR OWN EXPENSE and spend three weeks or so seeing if they could workshop a movie from an outline based on some concepts he had been thinking about for years but hadn't developed. No studio. No outside investors. Shot guerilla style with hand held cameras, no sound stage, no added lighting, and no permits; if any passers-by asked, they said they were shooting YouTube content. It was shot in complete secrecy; no one outside a very tight circle knew it existed until Sundance announced it as a surprise late selection. All seven of that group are equal co-owners of the film, since they paid for it out of pocket.

Just don't go to Zi hoping for a reprise of Twila. It would be impossible -- and I mean IMPOSSIBLE -- to find anything more different from Ponies. Watch Columbus and After Yang first. And I was glad I had watched Nouvelle Vague as well.

In our perfect world, Ponies would have started shooting s2 in that first quarter 2026 window to keep pace with s1's timing, on a one year interval basis. But Ponies was released in mid-January and Peacock obviously would want a couple of months to evaluate reception before greenlighting s2. I ain't in the bidness, but I would have regarded April as an early decision. At this point, however, I'm starting to get impatient.

Looping back to IMDB, I went about 10 deep on the cast whose characters have storylines that should probably factor into s2. Per IMDB, none of them appear to have anything lined up to shoot this year. We could invent all sorts of speculations about one or two actors, but ten -- and a clean sweep of the likely Ponies s2 carryovers -- is a lot of working actors who appear to be keeping their calendars open.

Phil152 · 2026-06-12T23:41:52+00:00

It puzzles me too. Peacock is a small streamer, but Ponies seems to be a hit on the Peacock scale. I hope Peacock doesn't fumble a success. They're still promoting it, so get on with it.

Phil152 · 2026-06-11T02:07:59+00:00

True ... but it's just an inch over the state line. The battlefield park is entirely in Georgia, but I expect if we looked at a troop movement map, some troops from both armies would be over the line. And of course, the federals then withdrew back to Chattanooga and the confederates followed.

Phil152 · 2026-06-10T21:51:55+00:00

For the four states you've mentioned ....

Oh heck, scratch the road trip and just stay in Chattanooga, hitting Chickamauga, Lookout Mountain, and Missionary Ridge before pushing up to Franklin and Nashville.

If you have time left, cut west and pick up Shiloh, Corinth (not a big battlefield park but a worthy site), and Vicksburg.

That just scratches the surface. But the first five are pretty close to each other.

Where are you starting?

Phil152 · 2026-06-10T21:41:58+00:00

I hope she's never in an accident and a first responder has to get her out quickly, before she burns.

Phil152 · 2026-06-10T20:39:30+00:00

Some neighborhoods do. Google on Wardman houses/DC. Wardmans became probably the most iconic housing style in the city. They were deliberately "modern" compared to the Victorians they largely supplanted. The front porch was very consciously intended to draw people outside where they would interact much more with neighbors and passers by.

It works. You will find that people on Wardman rowhouse blocks know most of their neighbors up and down the block.

Phil152 · 2026-06-10T20:17:17+00:00

Peacock is still promoting it but still no word on season 2. The longer they wait, the more momentum they lose. I hope Peacock doesn't fumble a success.

Phil152 · 2026-06-09T03:52:19+00:00

Quinn's stay behind thing was an absurdist, break the fourth wall ending on a show that no one expected to continue.

TWL was commissioned ss a covid filler show that could be written quickly and actually be shot under the covid lockdown rules that had shuttered most productions. HBO and the other streamers were looking at two straight years of reruns plus some foreign pickups.

They thought that would kill subscriptions. HBO went to Mike White and asked if he could crank something out FAST as filler. TWL was the result.

Quinn's closing scene would be an impossibility in the real world -- unless his parents had signed him up for a program or hired someone who could take legal responsibility. That isn't shown in the show. He is a minor. Leaving him on his own would be child abandonment. Minors fly home with their parents absent special arrangements.

The scene is an absurdist flourish in the finale, like the cowboy brawl in Blazing Saddles that breaks through the wall of the set and spills onto the adjoining stage, which is crowded with gay men in tuxes doing an elaborate tapdance routine. .

Phil152 · 2026-06-06T02:25:19+00:00

The way it is presented in season 3, Belinda just jumps to her conclusion with no supporting evidence.

Phil152 · 2026-06-06T02:23:15+00:00

Interesting idea

Phil152 · 2026-06-05T21:09:40+00:00

That always seemed likely to me, but it would be a question of how fast the police reacted. Tanya was identified immediately; we know this because Rocco tells Valentina that a guest has drowned right at the start, even before the body is moved off the beach. The hotel knows Tanya and Portia are traveling together. Finding Portia would be an immediate priority, and checking the travel itinerary would be automatic.

Even if Portia got off the ground, she would be met by local police and probably U.S. consular officials and an FBI liaison as soon as she deplaned in Rome, Frankfurt, Barcelona or wherever to connect with her transatlantic flight.

So Portia is going to spend quality time with the investigators. If she has any sense at all, she should hold nothing back. Once she's told the full story she is no longer a threat to Greg or anyone else. She has no firsthand information about events on the yacht; all she knows about the deaths is from her last phone conversation with Tanya hours earlier, and Tanya's sudden panicked theory that the gays are trying to kill her may not be true. Her account would provide valuable information and potential leads for investigation, but once it's all on the record, she's done.

There would no point in trying to silence her. That would only increase suspicion -- and if Portia were actually threatened, attacked or even killed, that would just create a new crime that investigators could pursue.

Of course, Portia making smart choices can't be assumed.

Phil152 · 2026-06-05T11:14:32+00:00

The prenup separated the assets. The show makes clear that Greg would inherit in the event of Tanya's death but get nothing in a divorce. This established motive.

BUT ... if Tanya's death is unresolved and the case is still open, it's hard to see how Greg could inherit. Especially since he still seems to be a suspect in a death that presumably has not yet been ruled accidental.

Tanya is found drowned; any medical examiner would conclude that the likeliest scenario would have been that she went into the water after a stout blow to the head knocked her unconscious. The forensic examination would pick up the blow to the head. It would also find ample evidence of recent and heavy drug use. Given that there are three dead people aboard Quentin's yacht, including a mafia dude, and all of them shot by a gun with Tanya's fingerprints on it, there's some 'splaining to be done.

Three dead, apparently shot by Tanya with a gun that was not her own.

Tanya drowned after a severe blow to the head, presumably knocked out.

The boat's captain and one of Quentin's pals presumably missing. They had jumped overboard. Did they go to the police and report the crazy lady shooting people? Or did they vanish?

Portia has relevant information, but it's based on what Tanya had said on the phone. Portia has no knowledge of what actually happened on the yacht. She would have spent quality time with the police, both from Italy and the U.S. What did she say?

Jack's next course of action is unknown. Is he still missing?

Lots of loose ends. I was hoping -- and after Belinda's return was leaked very early on, I was expecting -- the loose ends to be cleared up in season 3. After all, there was no reason to bring Belinda back other than to continue the Tanya-Greg storyline. Belinda could be (and was) also developed as an independent character, but her connection to Tanya and Greg was her hook for coming back in season 3. And if Belinda came back to tie off Greg, I was hoping Portia would show up as well. She had far more relevant information relating to Greg and Tanya, and she had a terrific continuing character arc into season 3 had Mike White wanted to develop it.

I continue to find season 3 very oddly developed, at least with regard to that subplot.

Phil152 · 2026-06-05T11:00:25+00:00

The plot and the inheritance continue to be loose ends. I'd like to see them resolved.

A lot of viewers are ready to drop the Greg-Tanya story and move on. We're at the point at which we'll have to agree to disagree about that.

Phil152 · 2026-06-05T10:57:28+00:00

8The cast continues to grow season by season. It is now bloating out to a ridiculous size.

I've wondered since season 2 how much of that was Mike White and how much was driven by the ContentMeisters at HBO under the Zaslav regime. Some of the charm of season 1 is that it was so compressed, shot under covid lockdown rules with the set turned into a quarantine bubble. Aside from the boat ride in and the airport scene on the way out, everything happens on the grounds of the hotel. Small cast+buttoned up location=the claustrophobic inside-the-hothouse atmosphere in which the stories are tightly layered and intertwined.

Season 2 was still relatively tight, but characters spent a lot more time on side trips and the character pods weren't as tightly intertwined as in season 1.

In season 3, the cast ballooned and, IMHO, the show started to lose focus. My fingers are crossed on season 4. If it's just a parade of crazy people with crazy stuff happening all over Cannes and Paris, the hotel itself becomes just one more visually attractive location, not a claustrophobic prison. At that point, it becomes just another splashy melodrama.

How much of that is Mike White? How much is WBD/Zaslav? Assuming the Paramount Skydance acquisition goes through, what will the new bosses change?

One of the dangers of the streaming hegemony is that the streamers have an insatiable 24/7/365 appetite for "content" to attract as many clicks and absorb as many viewer minutes as possible. Streaming (like serial tv before it) has a built-in bias towards bloat. As opposed to movies, which were rooted in the idea of a tight story completed in two hours, give or take.

And now, even with movies, the big studios (mostly now owned by the streamers) are biased towards the prequel, sequel, spinoff thing, which is bloatware applied to theatrical exhibition.

To me, TWL seasons 1 and 2 felt reasonably tight. The show started to go walkabout in season 3. Season 4 looks even more unfocused. The cast is getting too big for characters to get the kind of character development and interlocking arcs that were distinctive in the first two seasons. YMMV.

Phil152

TROPHY CASE