What have you been watching lately?
You Have Been Watching
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I just watched Educating Rita for the first time and afterwards decided to look around online for other views on it. Quite prominent was Roger Ebert’s review of it and I thought “well, Ebert’s well respected, let’s see what he thought of it”. And honestly, despite having read the whole thing, I couldn’t tell you because he repeatedly described the blaringly Scouse Rita as being “cockney” and I just couldn’t retain anything other than that. :D 😂
It’s especially odd given Ebert was of the generation that never shuts up about the Beatles. You’d think he’d have known what a Liverpudlian accent was.
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It was very well regarded at the time, nominated for Oscars, Globes and Baftas.
It’s too long since I saw it for me to give an assessment other than Julie Walters was very good (because she always is). I think there’s a strong element in Willy Russel’s work (including Shirley Valentine) of contemporary impact, it was very unusual at the time to get stories from a working class woman’s perspective.
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Disney has been doing that a lot lately, picking up directors from the indie festival circuit for their franchises. Before Zhao they’ve done it with Taika Waititi, Ryan Coogler, Scott Derrickson, Anna Boden & Ryan Fleck, and Barry Jenkins (Lion King 2, not Marvel). Ava DuVernay too before she left over creative differences. Sometimes the pairing makes a lot of sense (Waititi, Coogler) but with names like Zhao and Jenkins I feel like it’s more about clout. They’re acclaimed, award-winning filmmakers who are also people of color, and in Zhao’s case a woman. It’s a bit depressing because their voices almost certainly won’t make it through to the final product. Waititi’s did because his sense of humor is in line with the MCU, Coogler’s sensibilities came through in BP’s story though only sporadically in the style, but I suspect Eternals and Lion King 2 will feel like they could’ve been directed by anyone. Zhao & Jenkins really have nothing in common with Disney’s filmmaking style, their strengths are pretty much diametrically opposed to Disney. I can’t blame them for taking the money but I hope they don’t get sucked into the Disney machine.
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Fair enough. We can replace them with Jon Watts, Cate Shortland, Destin Daniel Cretton, and Nia DaCosta. I’m still counting Boden, directing a few episodes of TV she wasn’t showrunner on probably factored in less than her acclaimed films Half Nelson and Mississippi Grind.
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I feel like it’s more about clout.
It is, sadly… Marvel makes movies almost by assembly line at this point, they can basically pick any director who says “yes”.
I just saw this video the other day, precisely:
that goes into a good chunk of the process… I guess we can debate whether it’s a “good” or “bad” way of doing movies, but the fact is that yeah, by now they have an almost mechanized process for pumping out movies. I’m sure that’s why some directors have left or turned down the gigs…
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Yeah, I think they typically do action scenes without director input now too, at least as of a few years ago. And tbf indie filmmakers with awards but no huge box office successes behind them are easier to push around. Jenkins’ Oscar is a little different but I’m unconvinced his 100% CGI Lion King sequel will be distinctly his movie.
EDIT: Hadn’t watched the video when I responded but now I see that it addresses my first point about their action scenes. I didn’t realize previs went so far beyond the fight scenes, though!
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Zhao seems to be very much outside the Marvel wheelhouse, whereas people like Jon Watts had at least directed genre movies rather than arthouse pieces like Nomadland.
I watched an interview with her though and she, like a lot of people who have worked with Marvel Studios, was pretty rapturous about how much creative freedom she’d been given.
She certainly has an eye for an arresting image, and despite the rather freeform approach of Nomadland, the script was elegant and had a strong narrative.
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EDIT: Hadn’t watched the video when I responded but now I see that it addresses my first point about their action scenes. I didn’t realize previs went so far beyond the fight scenes, though!
Yeah, it’s kinda bonkers… and like the video says, it’s almost like there’s an additional, or a shadow director if you will, attached to most movies.
I mean, again, not saying it’s good or bad, but I think Feige’s strenght lies precisely in the well-oiled machinery he’s built in Marvel Studios in order to be able to pump out 2-3 movies a year, with teams in different areas probably working non-stop, whether it’s for pre- or post-production or anywhere in between. You have your concept art team, your costume department team, your previs team, etc etc… I mean, I’m just assuming that’s what it is, but odds are I’m right, because that makes the most sense.
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The Watch, Episode 6
I look at a show like The Boys and understand that certain changes were made as part of the translation from comic book to television series. It’s the nature of the beast and can be a very delicate balancing act. When you have a showrunner who not only respects the source material but also understands it, that will increase the odds of success exponentially. And in the case of The Boys, you have a great series.
The idiot in charge of The Watch, on the other hand, does not understand the works of Sir Terry Pratchett. This leads to all out disrespect. He lacks the necessary subtlety for the job. The series lacks any depth. The “deep” moments are announce with deftness of a foghorn being blown in your face. He has taken pieces from the books, added some gender- and race-switching, thrown them into a setting that doesn’t make sense, and called it a TV series. It doesn’t feel coherent. It wants to be something but some of the pieces are incompatible with each other as presented so it never comes together.
Two episodes to go and then the nightmare will be over.
One good thing to come out of this: I realize I would like to reread the Discworld novels from the beginning in the future. There were several in the latter years I haven’t read and some of the early ones I read out of order. I think it would be fun to read them all in order.
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http://thecarrier.net/forums/topic/what-are-you-watching-new-season/page/10/#post-52833
I do actually really hate time paradoxes though, so I have to fight really hard to switch off part of my brain when watching Terminator or Terminator 2.
Some interesting bits from the Rewatchables – I don’t know if I ever realised that Arnie’s character being a good guy was hidden – until he saves John Connor from the T1000’s bullets it’s plausible that the resistance has sent the T1000 to protect John (and he’s dressed as a cop) and the T100 is a baddie again. It’s deliberately hidden from us that when the T1000 arrives he kills the police officer – we only see him knock the guy out and then adopt his look (but he clearly would have killed him).
They considered Michael Biehn to be the T1000 (a proper role reversal from the first film, which would have been particularly traumatic for Sarah Connor), and offered the Dyson role to Denzel Washington – he passed.
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Some interesting bits from the Rewatchables – I don’t know if I ever realised that Arnie’s character being a good guy was hidden – until he saves John Connor from the T1000’s bullets it’s plausible that the resistance has sent the T1000 to protect John (and he’s dressed as a cop) and the T100 is a baddie again. It’s deliberately hidden from us that when the T1000 arrives he kills the police officer – we only see him knock the guy out and then adopt his look (but he clearly would have killed him).
Yeah, it’s often cited as one of the most spoiled ‘twists’ in movies because most of the marketing revealed that Arnie was the good guy this time around, way ahead of release.
But if you hadn’t seen any of that and had only seen T1 then you could conceivably believe that the T1000 is the good guy (and could even be human!) right up until the fight in the corridor. He seems much more reasonable than Arnie and goes about his investigation a lot more rationally.
I actually saw T2 before T1, so although I knew that Arnie was the bad guy in T1 my first proper experience of the T-800 was seeing him as the good guy. When I then went back and saw him as the villain in T1 it felt like quite a stark contrast.
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Arguably T2 performed better at the box office than it would have done with Arnie marketed as the bad guy in order to preserve the twist. That was the peak of his imperial phase and people just wanted him as the hero.
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Whatever happened to coupling big rock songs with big movies??!!!
Also, man, that video really showed way too much footage. That’s basically the whole movie in there!
(If that is the original video? I think it might be, but I’m not sure.)Also, I really want to rewatch Terminator. Will have to see if I can fit it in this weekend.
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Whatever happened to coupling big rock songs with big movies??!!!
They did it in Armageddon and both Aerosmith and Liv Tyler lost half their fanbase.
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Did they? I Don’t Want To Miss A Thing was by far Aerosmith’s biggest hit single.
You Could Be Mine was the last gasp of Appetite for Destruction style Guns N’ Roses before the whole thing disappeared up Axl’s nose. Shame.
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I always hated the poster for Terminator 2. On the first poster, Arnie looks like a brute of a man, a believable killing machine, but the second one is too staged, not a hair out of place, so he just looks like a GQ model.
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This reply was modified 3 years, 10 months ago by
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This reply was modified 3 years, 10 months ago by .
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You can say it Steve, you only like Arnie when he’s got his shirt off.
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Did they? I Don’t Want To Miss A Thing was by far Aerosmith’s biggest hit single.
Yeah, as someone who was massively into Aerosmith in the ’90s I can say that the fans felt it was a bit of an albatross but it was massively popular, and now is probably one of their best known songs.
One of the last big rock song/movie combinations I remember was that Hero one for Spider-Man by the Nickelback guy. That was, what, 2002?
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You can say it Steve, you only like Arnie when he’s got his shirt off.
Arnie can terminate me any time.
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One good thing to come out of this: I realize I would like to reread the Discworld novels from the beginning in the future. There were several in the latter years I haven’t read and some of the early ones I read out of order. I think it would be fun to read them all in order.
I am SO down for a book club reading of this.
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Edit: oh no, I’m thinking of the Limp Bizkit one.
That’s the one I was thinking of. Linkin Park, Limp Bizkit, Tomato, Potato, Woman, Man, Camera, Television.
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Do the James Bond themes count? They’re probably the only film franchise that still guarantees a hit song.
Yeah, true. They’ve kept that tradition alive, and very successfully.
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Bond kind of exists as its own thing I think, they did the big movie song before anyone else and have carried on long after it has died off.
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Aside from the Bond stuff, I think Prince/Batman was the first big promotional push for a blockbuster movie with a big hit song/video by a major music star.
By the time it got to Batman & Robin the concept had gotten so muddled that they wound up with a soundtrack that somehow combined R Kelly, Jewel, Underworld and R.E.M. onto one track listing.
Maybe it all tapered off with the decline of MTV.
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Aside from the Bond stuff, I think Prince/Batman was the first big promotional push for a blockbuster movie with a big hit song/video by a major music star.
Nah, it’s been around for decades. The first song made a hit by a movie was Bill Haley’s Rock Around the Clock, which became a hit after it was featured in Blackboard Jungle in 1955. It’s hardly a new phenomenon.
Axel F from Beverly Hills Cop predates Batman, as does Stayin’ Alive from Saturday Night Fever – there’s literally hundreds of them going back years.
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Into The Spider-Verse had a song. It was absolute shit, but it had one.
Both the LEGO movies had songs, Everything is Awesome and Catchy Song respectively.
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It is times like these we all need to take a stiff drink and bear in mind there was once a Broadway musical about Spider-Man with music by U2.
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It is times like these we all need to take a stiff drink and bear in mind there was once a Broadway musical about Spider-Man with music by U2.
And at least one person posting here bought the official cast recording album.
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Movie soundtracks were an easy way for studios affiliated with record labels to cross promote – the late 90s Godzilla soundtrack was good fun; I bought that CD even though I hadn’t seen and didn’t care about the film – Green Day, Puff Daddy and Jimmy page, Silverchair, Rage against the Machine; it was a good compilation.
Still on T2, I had completely forgotten that I saw it relatively early as my dad worked for QANTAS and this was back in the day when the planes would show a single movie on a “big” screen for everyone to watch in flight – it’d often be hard-subbed (and not always in English depending on the airline) – he managed to get a VHS copy of it (with mandarin subs) when it was in cinema release.
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Puff Daddy and Jimmy page
I need to remove those words from my brain. Should I start drinking heavily or jump straight to electric shock therapy?
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The last film(s) I remember having a promotional song was one or all of the Twilight films, which despite the movie’s quality were really good. One had original songs by Muse, Sia and Florence and the Machine.
Hunger Games had some very good ones too, and then they just never did one for the final movie.
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Puff Daddy and Jimmy page
I need to remove those words from my brain. Should I start drinking heavily or jump straight to electric shock therapy?
But Puff Daddy and Jimmy Page would become Perfect Strangers to you.
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Puff Daddy and Jimmy page
I need to remove those words from my brain. Should I start drinking heavily or jump straight to electric shock therapy?
But Puff Daddy and Jimmy Page would become Perfect Strangers to you.
The battle rages on…
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Movie soundtracks were an easy way for studios affiliated with record labels to cross promote – the late 90s Godzilla soundtrack was good fun; I bought that CD even though I hadn’t seen and didn’t care about the film – Green Day, Puff Daddy and Jimmy page, Silverchair, Rage against the Machine; it was a good compilation.
Yeah, that soundtrack (and Puff Daddy’s video) was way more fun than the movie.
And oy, you forgot Jamiroquai’s Deeper Underground, that was awesome! Hm, can’t find the Godzilla promo video for that one, that was another fun one.
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Back in the 90s some of my favorite albums were soundtracks. Matrix, Dracula 2000, Crow. They were on repeat for days on my stereo.
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The first Matrix soundtrack was a cracker. Judgment Night and Spawn too.
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With the Crow, the whole movie was about the soundtrack really.
5% soundtrack, 95% Brandon Lee actually died.
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Hey, if we’re talking soundtracks then let’s not forget The Transformers: The Movie: The Soundtrack. It is quite definitive.
Also, a special mention to the Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey soundtrack for introducing ten year-old me to the likes of Primus, Faith No More, Megadeath, KISS and Steve Vai, among others.
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*picks mic up*
There is no way I am giving this back.
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Hey, if we’re talking soundtracks then let’s not forget The Transformers: The Movie: The Soundtrack. It is quite definitive.
I truly believe “The Touch” is the nerd/geek anthem of Generation X.
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Ahead of the Coming To America sequel I rewatched the original tonight. I think it really holds up and I don’t think it’s nostalgia talking.
It’s just a very funny, sweet, charming film and a lot of the gags really land. Murphy is obviously great but Arsenio is fantastic too.
It’s made me look forward to seeing these characters again.
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Everyone needs to watch the danish movie Druk (Another Round). Especially our resident teachers and alcohol lovers. Bruce, Christian, Arjan and everyone.
I don’t want to give too much away, but the elevator pitch is that a couple of old friends decide to live their lives constantly drunk. What ensues is both hilarity and tragedy. Extremely well acted and with a fantastic ending.
My prediction is that this is the best movie I’m going to see all year and I would love to be wrong about that because anything surpassing this will be a masterpiece extraordinaire.
9/10.
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I truly believe “The Touch” is the nerd/geek anthem of Generation X.
This is where sick and twisted overpowers geeky because whenever I see or hear this song I always think of “can you show me on this doll where the man touched you”
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It may be too late for a cinema viewing, it’s already out of theatres in Denmark…
I expected so, but I don’t think it ever started here…
Hey, I see it’s planned to start at the end of the month in German theatres! Whooo!
Nice! I hope you get to see it, it’s definitely worth it. If you liked Festen or Jagten, this is a must-see. And I think it’s Vinterbergs best movie to date.
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On the topic of how shows are reacting to the pandemic, the panel show Hypothetical is back this week, and the network banned them from mentioning COVID, as they constantly rerun shows, and people in two years time might not remember anything about coronavirus. They released a compilation of them not mentioning it:
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the second episode had even more Tudyk. The scene with him trying to figure out how a human body works was great physical humor.
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That’s a good point. It doesn’t shy away from the horror elements. Reminds me of HAPPY in a lot of respects where the very antisocial lead really is the main attraction.
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Last night I watched SILVER STREAK, the 1976 comedy/thriller starring Gene Wilder, Richard Pryor, and Jill Clayburgh, with a great supporting cast including Patrick McGoohan, Ned Beatty, Ray Walston, Richard Kiel, Clifton James, Scatman Crothers, and (in a fairly minor role) Fred Willard. Watching the film, I wondered how many of the prominent actors are still alive. A quick check on IMDB revealed that, of all those actors, only 83-year-old Ned Beatty is still among the living.
Good for you, Ned!! Whatever you’re doing, keep it up!
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So I watched that Bliss movie… they should’ve just called it Mess, ’cause that’s what it is… I guess there are several ways to interpret the movie, I mean, there are 2 very obvious ones… but honestly, I don’t think there’s an explanation for this one, I believe it’s a genuine bunch of wankery that isn’t supposed to make sense but raise questions about reality and all that jazz…
It tries too hard to be something “unique” but it just feels like an excersise in over-indulgment. I don’t know, when it ended I just went… well, that was pointless…
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It tries too hard to be something “unique” but it just feels like an excersise in over-indulgment. I don’t know, when it ended I just went… well, that was pointless…
Seems like I recall an Australian movie from the 80’s called BLISS, I believe, starring Barry Otto. It was about an advertising or insurance executive who believes he is successful but has a heart attack. After the bypass surgery to save his life, while recuperating he discovers all these terrible secrets about his family and friends and starts to really think he actually died and this is his hell. It’s a very funny movie but I imagine even fewer people will see it since this one came out unless they select it by accident.
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Binged Helluva Boss on YouTube.
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Watched Ghosts of War on Netflix. It’s a about a squad of soldiers that have to guard a haunted French mansion during WWII. I was actually quite enjoying it. It’s got good performances, and sets up a creepy little atmosphere…But deary me, it absolutely shits the bed in the last 15-20 minutes with a truly horrendous twist that ruines what could have been a nice little ghost story.
I also got caught up on the first season of Snowpiercer. I was a bit weary at first because it looked like it was going to be a crime of the week style show with the “train detective”. But luckily if wasn’t that, instead it’s one big story that I though did a good job of expanding the class war story from the film. I though it got a little silly at the end when it’s trying to set up season 2. But I’ll still give it a watch when it’s all on Netflix.
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I tried watching it. The stunts were good and it has Rosario Dawson as a judge. But there were too many shots of anti mask, dipshit, red state wackos in the audience. Remove the audience shots and it would be a much better show.
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I’m watching ‘It’s A Sin’. The Russell T Davies drama about a group of gay men and their friends running from 1981 to 1991. As usual with TRD there are great characters and smatterings of excellent dialogue. He’s never subtle but he is good.
2 episodes in and it has such echoes of now. A new virus appears and everyone knows so little. In the 1981 episode they know of some illness in the US, 3 years later they don’t know much more. It’s not common knowledge that it can be only spread by bodily fluids, that condoms would prevent transmission, such a simple thing that could have saved thousands of lives if they knew.
I’ve heard this show smashes you in the heart later so I’m preparing myself for that.
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Snowpiercer S2 has started now on netflix, hasn’t it? What’s the general verdict on the show anyway? I remember some people talking about it, but I think opinions varied a bit?
Yes it has and Sean Bean has joined the show… it’s been an okay series in general, I wouldn’t say it’s super amazing, but it’s much better than average for sure. The second season, so far, has been as good… the opening narrations are a bit better too, which was probably one of my complains in S1.
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Sean Bean has joined the show…
Did he survive past the first episode?
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The New York Times Presents: Framing Britney Spears
Very interesting. Never heard so much about what a conservatorship is until now…
You really sympathize with her and her situation. Now I understand the current backlash against Justin Timberlake who didn’t look good at all and Diane Sawyer for her 2003 interview.
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Now I understand the current backlash against Justin Timberlake who didn’t look good
Now what did he do?
Had a “music” career
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So… the last episode of The Stand came out… I’ve never read the book, and if it’s anything like the show, I’m really not interested. The show was hum… well not very good. Funny how badly Stephen King’s books usually end up being butchered. Apparently the last episode is a “new” ending? Who knows… it’s all very mediocre.
Anyways, I do wonder, is The Stand one of those cocaine-fueled SK books? Because holy shit that story is kinda stupid. I mean, “Captain Tripps”… seriously? I couldn’t really take the show seriously after that…
Oh and Ezra Miller is in there and holy shit that must be some of the worst acting I’ve ever seen… I really don’t know how anyone involved thought that was even acceptable.
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Now I understand the current backlash against Justin Timberlake who didn’t look good
Now what did he do?
People are starting to twig that Timberlake built his solo career off the back of, essentially, slut shaming Britney Spears and continually going out of his way to snipe at her to make himself look good/sympathetic while not having the balls to actually say anything plainly.
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Well, the two-part episode of Death in Paradise was a real tear-jerker
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