What’re you watching now?

Topic

What movies and TV shows are you watching?

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I finished watching Blood and Treasure, which is like sub-Tomb-Raider entertainment that works best if you leave your critical faculties at the door.

Basic plot: ex-FBI agent teams up with (ex-girlfriend) thief to track down terrorists who have stolen the mummy of Cleopatra and are planning on weaponising it (??!!!???!) for use in a terror attack.

Once you ignore the preposterous plot, it’s good, lightweight fun as our heroes race around the world always *not quite* find the mummy.

There are a couple of plot twists late in the season that are so preposterous I’m convinced they were actually making up the plot as they went along.

Best thing about the series is Michael James Shaw in a recurring role as a crooked arms dealer who “helps” them in a variety of amusingly incompetent ways.

Overall it really is entertaining, as long as you embrace its flaws.

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Rocket

I watched Blood and Treasure last year on CBS. The weekly schedule helped with the serial nature of the show, enhancing the 30s-40s feel of it.  I loved Shaw and all his “complicated” backstory. He also played Agent Mike on the Limitless TV show but that role was like a 180 from Aiden. I loved that show as well. I think Jake McDorman did a better job playing a guy on that brain expanding drug than Bradley Cooper did in the movie of the same name. I would recommend it. it is 10 times more fun than the movie.

Getting back to Blood and Treasure. I seemed to enjoy it the more preposterous it got.

 

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DavidM

I didn’t see the Limitless movie but I liked the TV show. It’s a pity it didn’t get a longer run.

Shaw was also in Constantine playing whatisname the voodoo guy, another completely different role. He’s obviously versatile and I wouldn’t mind seeing more of him.

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Rocket

Oh Limitless was good… both the movie and the TV show… it was a bummer they cancelled it. I kinda liked how for once a TV show was actually a sequel to the movie.

I’ve never even heard of ‘Blood and Treasure’. It’s not the most subtle of titles, but sometimes you have to get down to basics and let people know what they can expect.

Oh man, this week’s Avenue 5 was so dark. Like flat-earthers in space.

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Todd, lorcan_nagle

I gotta say I’m not feeling Avenue 5.

I haven’t read a bad thing about it here and it’s clearly got merits but it’s just not vibing for me.

Like there’s no whatchamacallit razzamatatazz thingamajig thingthatmakesyougommmmmmmmmmm.

This has been my Avenue 5 review.

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Christian

I rewatched some Batman movies over the last couple weeks:

The Dark Knight – I hadn’t watched this since about 2013 so I was happy to see it holds up for the most part. Heat as a Batman movie remains an ingenious concept. Yes, the dialogue is terrible in places–the worst example is when Gordon reads off the names of two people the Joker killed, Sam Harvey and Thomas Dent, and one of his cops breathlessly says “…Harvey Dent” as if anyone in the theater couldn’t piece the clue together–but it’s just as intense an experience as it was in 2008.

Heath Ledger’s performance is still really effective, equally disturbing and darkly funny, even if Joaquin has dethroned him as the best live-action Joker. But Aaron Eckhart is nearly as good and holds the film together just as much. And the ferry scenes are great, anchored by a brief but chilling, and ultimately human, performance by Tiny Lister.

The Dark Knight Rises – Up until right after Bane defeats Batman, TDKR is even better than TDK. But after that it gets really patchy. I like the stuff with Bruce in prison but the Gotham revolution is both over the top and undercooked. And the reactionary politics of the latter half leave a bad taste. An army of cops beating up a mob of angry poor people whipped into a frenzy by Bane? No thank you. Tom Hardy and Anne Hathaway are excellent, and Christian Bale and Michael Caine put in their best work of the series.

Batman Returns – Probably my first time watching this movie the whole way through since I was a kid. Before, it always felt too ridiculous for me, but this time I really dug how much of a nightmare it is. The deliriousness of 1989’s Batman is ramped up to 11. That said, I’d have liked it even more if not for the incessant innuendos and sloganeering of Penguin, Catwoman, and Max Shreck. Every once in a while they have a decent one-liner but mostly the wordplay is like Brian Azzarello at his most grating. “A place for a new mayor in Gotham, and Oswald Cobblepot filling the void…” “I’d like to fill her void!” Though the worst is when Batman punches Catwoman and says “Eat floor. High fiber.” Thankfully those kinds of lines didn’t dampen my enjoyment that much. The baroque set design and nightmare-logic of the narrative more than made up for them.

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KandorLives, Dave, DavidM

Will_C wrote:

Heath Ledger’s performance is still really effective, equally disturbing and darkly funny, even if Joaquin has dethroned him as the best live-action Joker

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Will_C

Haha, I might be the only person on this board who thinks Joker is genuinely a very good movie!

Some of it is down to the approaches both movies take. TDK is all quick cuts and snippets of scenes so that the movie feels like it’s in a constant state of climax [insert obligatory “phrasing!” joke here]. Joker lets scenes breathe and Joaquin has more opportunity to flesh out the character.

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DavidM, Dave

Jok(er)ing aside, while I didn’t love the Joker movie I did think that Phoenix gave a pretty amazing performance and I definitely think you could argue the case for him being your favourite Joker.

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Will_C

I still prefer Ledger/Nolan’s version. I think he’s a more effective version of the character.

Phoenix is a fine actor and he did fine work, but the movie hasn’t stuck with me at all.

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garjones

Batman Returns has seemed like my favourite Batman film for a long time – even though it following Batman (1989) kind of cemented the idea that superhero films should end with the villain/s dead (like most action movies), instead of imprisoned or otherwise mysteriously absent (like most comic book stories).

Sure the villains are even more of a departure from the comics than 1989 Joker, but it’s probably an improvement for Penguin at least.

(Catwoman’s origin remains silly, and Batman giving not a damn about killing people is very odd.)

Andrew wrote:

(Catwoman’s origin remains silly, and Batman giving not a damn about killing people is very odd.)

Well considering he’s killed people in almost every movie (not sure about DKR and B&R), it shouldn’t be all that odd…

I think it Batman 1989 you can feasibly deny any deaths (I’m thinking of blowing up the chemical factory), apart from Joker – and even that’s accidental.

The one that stands out in BR is he shoves a large bomb into one of Penguins’ goons’ hands and throws him down a manhole – there’s an immediate explosion – he dead.

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Uncle Retrospective, Ben

Jon wrote:

Andrew wrote:

(Catwoman’s origin remains silly, and Batman giving not a damn about killing people is very odd.)

Well considering he’s killed people in almost every movie (not sure about DKR and B&R), it shouldn’t be all that odd…

Him killing Two-Face in Batman Forever was particularly hypocritical.

Although it works for the movie, I was kinda annoyed that Batman Returns makes two of Batman’s least crazy villains crazy. Penguin and Catwoman are just thieves. One likes birds and the other likes cats. They’re not like the Joker.

Does it annoy anyone else when not-crazy Batman villains like Penguin, Selina, Mr. Freeze, etc. are put in Arkham instead of Blackgate?

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DavidM, KandorLives

Holy crap! I think that you’ve just broken Bat-comics for me. Wow.

 

I saw Bloodshot today, having never read a single comic featuring the guy (I think that I read an FCBD issue by Lemire but that was only a few pages), so my preconceptions were pretty nonexistent besides the general look and design of the character (which is not how Vin Diesel looks). So overall I had a good enough time with it. I’d say that they utilised the budget well since most of the effects look sharp and stylised in a cool way. Saying that, one climactic fight looks like we’re watching pre-vis footage at times. If you complained about Terminator Dark Fate then I expect some harsh words for this single scene. Outside of that the action is a mixed bag, choppy and obscuring camerawork reducing the enjoyment in some scenes, only for us to get strong visuals and effective slo-mo shots at other times.

I am left with many questions regarding how any of this stuff compares to whatever happens in the comic books, and I’m glad that I forgot most of the trailer because they showed far too much. It remains to be seen if the film is just as forgettable.

Presumably this thing is getting bad reviews, and I’m not particularly interested in owning the film on home video or seeing it again in the cinema. Yet this must be weighed against Guy Pearce looking like he came out of a Metal Gear game, Toby Kebbell getting a genuinely fun moment, Eiza Gonzalez committing, and no other Vin Diesel films coming out anytime soon. Anyway, I’m interested to see what everybody else thinks. Is anybody who reads the Valiant stuff intending to watch this?

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Todd

JRCarter wrote:

Him killing Two-Face in Batman Forever was particularly hypocritical.

Oh, I don’t really remember much about Batman Forever (and have only seen bits of Batman and Robin).

Will_C wrote:

Does it annoy anyone else when not-crazy Batman villains like Penguin, Selina, Mr. Freeze, etc. are put in Arkham instead of Blackgate?

Not really thought about it (and haven’t read any stories where Selina is gaoled or caught really – does she end up in Arkham a lot?). Freeze’s antics seem pretty criminally insane, no?

Andrew wrote:

Oh, I don’t really remember much about Batman Forever (and have only seen bits of Batman and Robin).

All you need to know is that these films forced Chris O’Donnell into a career on the small screen.   

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JRCarter, Todd

Batman Returns is so weird. It’s like an S&M club was hired to put on a nativity play for the local primary school. In July.

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DavidM, RonnieM, garjones, Todd, lorcan_nagle, JRCarter, Will_C

Just finished the second season of Kingdom that premiered on Netflix today.

It was amazing. Just as good as Season 1, if not outright better in places – and that was a hell of an achievement given how great that first season ended up being. It keeps up the momentum, the stakes, the drama, and all of the horror – but without sacrificing the well-thought out characters and arcs that made Season 1 such a surprisingly clever delight. It really shows a huge improvement not only in the storytelling, but the stylization, and pacing of its events. It covers a lot more ground than the first season did, and all of it feels earned. Leading to a wonderful and thrilling finale. A finale that honestly could have been a series finale. And given that I’ve heard rumors that this was initially meant to be a one season miniseries, I could believe it.

But it does leave some threads and hooks open for a third season, and I hope it does well enough to get picked up for it. Overall, 9/10.

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KandorLives

saga wrote:

Batman Returns is so weird. It’s like an S&M club was hired to put on a nativity play for the local primary school. In July.

Well, there’s you quote for the back of the DVD package.

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Uncle Retrospective, Ben, Dave

Caught The Hunt.

It’s pretty much just You’re Next but without the creativity or cleverness. There’s satire for sure, but it’s kinda limply, clumsily, and very needlessly inserted. It ends up adding little, or nothing, to the movie at all. Thankfully, the stuff it retreads from You’re Next is fun enough…like, that was a pretty neat movie – so the comparison helps keep this one afloat. Along with a bevy of really good character actors who try their best with this rather empty script. It’s bland and drags for the most part – but worth a rainy day watch if you’re really bored. Or…just queue up You’re Next.

Overall – 5/10

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Will_C

My wife and I watched Pan’s Labyrinth as she’d never seen it and I knew she’d enjoy it (I was right).

This used to be one of my all-time favorite movies but I like it considerably less now, although it’s still very good. It doesn’t help that I recently watched one of its main influences, the more eerie/magical The Spirit of the Beehive. I also noticed some really overdone color-correcting in PL. It’s garishly blue in a lot of places. I’m a little confused how it won a best cinematography Oscar.

But like I said, it’s still a good movie. Good story, good performances, good ideas. The fascist captain is an all-time great movie villain, as unflinching a depiction of evil as there’s ever been, and the set and creature design, especially for the faun and the Pale Man, are among the best of this century.

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DavidM, lorcan_nagle

I’ve been watching Beast Wars Neo recently, the second of two Japanese exclusive Transformers series made to fill the gap while Japan waited for seasons 2 and 3 of Beast Wars to be translated.

I was getting quite into it for the most part. It’s got a better format than its predecessor, Beast Wars II, and juggles its sub-plots better than the following Takara series, Car Robots (which tends to just go “oh yeah, we were doing a sub-plot about x. Here’s the rest of that”). But man does it ever mess up the landing.

The final third of the series builds up to the return of Unicron, tying into the series arc of Beast Wars II, with a decent amount of growing dread and raised stakes, but the last four episodes or so just completely drop the ball. The penultimate episode has the end of the actual plot, so you’d think would be a showcase episode, but the animation in the first half at least is the worst the series has seen, with all the cast atrociously off-model. The episode finishes very abruptly, so you’d be forgiven for expecting that the final episode would be a wide-ranging coda, tying everything up, but nope, it’s mostly a tongue-in-cheek clip show! Then it has the Predacons all reappear for an arbitrary fight, which takes places in stills across the end credits, with the cast of Beast Wars II – whose fate was left hanging at the end of that series – also making cameos, with no explanation of where they’ve been or what happened to them. And then… that’s it! Soppy little coda and series over.

It’s pretty much just You’re Next but without the creativity or cleverness.

Interestingly enough, I preferred The Hunt. I was impressed with the staging of the crunchy fight scenes and found the protagonist to be unique and compelling. I don’t want to get into spoilers but I found the reasons given for the hunt itself more interesting in this movie, though that really is down to personal taste.

I also noticed some really overdone color-correcting in PL. It’s garishly blue in a lot of places. I’m a little confused how it won a best cinematography Oscar.

It was a very early apology for the fact that the DP would end up working on Dolittle in the future.

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Will_C, Elvis Dutan

Ok all of a sudden Avenue 5 is brilliant.

IS THIS BY THE GUY THAT DID VEEP BECAUSE IT FEELS SORT OF LIKE IT

yes

oh ok

Why did I think it was a muppet show?

That’s Avenue Q

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Ben, Dave

Ta. I remembered as soon as I asked because of Star Trek.

I forgot to mention I saw Bloodshot before everything closed down. I liked it. Diesel was his usual brooding, family oriented, violent self. The action was good. The sidekick/comedy relief Wigans was very good but I understand when he was not in the 1st half of the movie. The scene with the real woman all his missions were based was a very nice touch. Eiza Gonzalez is truly gorgeous and her underwater kata was captivating. Of course you need to be able to ignore plot holes and let go to enjoy the movie.

I watched John Wick tonight. Eh, it’s ok. It mainly made me want to watch Bill and Ted 3, so I can see Keanu do something other than Sad Keanu again. It also finally made me accept that “video gamey” is a valid criticism to apply to some films, because damn this wants to be a video game.

I found the ending a bit of a misfire too given the entire film has Wick refuting the “it’s just a fucking dog” thing and he has a big moment saying how much it means to him. And then at the end he just… arbitrarily steals a new dog? Like, charitably that was a shelter and not just a vet, so he didn’t steal someone’s pet, but the way he takes no time in picking one of the many dogs to take, just goes to a cage and takes it, it just completely undercuts any kind of emotional resonance there. Like if it had looked like the dead dog, creating an immediate sense of connection to it, that’d kinda work, but it’s just “I’m taking this dog”. There’s not even really a moment where he looks at it before stealing it. It just felt tone deaf given the importance of the dead dog.

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Andrew, lorcan_nagle

Yeah but you do realize it wasn’t really about the dog right? (well, not entirely at least) =P

Beetlejuice

It holds up as a really creative and distinctive film, plus it’s still very entertaining.

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Uncle Retrospective

Finished season 2 of Altered Carbon. It was very good.

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RonnieM, Todd

Good!

I’ll watch it at some point, maybe sooner rather than later if work dries up.

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Christian

Finished Castlevania. I’m surprised now much it was just people talking, defiantly felt like a season where Ellis was getting shuffling all the pieces around the board, but it was fun none the less.

I am wondering of the bit at the end in the Mayor’s house was a Bill Hicks reference.

6 eps into Altered Carbon season 2 and I’m sooo bored.

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lorcan_nagle, Todd

Watched Joker. I had some trepidation, because of the discourse around it – is it an irresponsible example to impressionable incels? Is it a condemnation of inequality and the way society treats the downtrodden? Is it slamming celebrity/fame culture? Is it a shameless rip-off of Taxi Driver-meets-King of Comedy?

Yes.

The main performance is good. The set design and grittiness of the locations is impressive. The script is patchy. The point is unclear.

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Uncle Retrospective, SteveUK, lorcan_nagle, Dave, Christian

I’m halfway through the Icelandic serial killer miniseries The Valhalla Murders on Netflix. It’s very good! A Reykjavik detective and an expert from Oslo team up to track down a killer targeting former employees of an abusive boys’ home. Although it’s not a horror show there are some really tense moments that use darkness to great effect.

Andrew wrote:

a shameless rip-off of Taxi Driver-meets-King of Comedy

King of Taxidermy

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Andrew, Todd, SteveUK

I’ve been watching clips of “Yes, Minister” which are pretty funny. I guess THE THICK OF IT was somewhat inspired by this show.

 

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Uncle Retrospective, Dave

Yes, Minister (and its sequel series Yes, Prime Minister) are one of my all-time favourites. The writing alone is brilliant, but it’s one of those shows where the performances of the leads elevate the material even higher, and create something really magical.

It’s also a great combination of being specific enough that it reflects its era while also being universal enough that some of the storylines feel strikingly relevant today.

I rewatched the whole thing again last year (shortly after a full rewatch of The Thick Of It) and thoroughly enjoyed both.

And yes, it’s definitely a big influence on TTOI. To some extent its shadow hangs over all political comedy in the UK, but Armando Iannucci is obviously a fan – he specifically championed it as part of a series covering the best UK sitcoms many years back, and also called it out as a specific inspiration when TTOI first launched (along with Larry Sanders, interestingly):

http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/pressreleases/stories/2005/12_december/08/thick_armando.shtml

I’d describe The Thick Of It as Yes, Minister meets Larry Sanders – Gary Shandling’s American sitcom about the behind-the-scenes activities of a late-night primetime chat-show host.

The Larry Sanders Show, though very funny, buried its comedy in authenticity; the viewers felt they were not only watching something that was very funny, but it must be pretty much like what actually goes on. I wanted to get this same smack of realism.

…

I’ve been interested in doing a comedy about Whitehall for some time – but only got interested in it after championing Yes, Minister last year for the BBC’s Britain’s Best Sitcom.

Watching the shows again made me realise how revolutionary they must have appeared to viewers when they were first broadcast. It’s easy to forget that Yes, Minister was really the first time the workings of Whitehall had been seen on television.

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DavidM

More schadenfreude at the now millions for the first time experiencing the Great Video Wasteland that we call Saturday.

Suffer as I have!

 

It’s Saturday so I watched some nice cheerful cartoons:

the series finale of Castlevania.

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Todd

We watched a Tom and Jerry from the early years. It was pretty fucking weird. Pair of sexual deviants.

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Todd

And Bugs Bunny was a cross-dressing bisexual. What’s your point?

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Todd

Pepé Le Pew was terrifying.

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Uncle Retrospective, Todd

Anonymous wrote:

Pepé Le Pew was terrifying.

Serial rapist

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Uncle Retrospective

Bluto in Popeye was an actual rapist. If it would be made today it would be excoriated.

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Miqque

Two eps in, this Castlevania series is rather good.

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Uncle Retrospective, Todd

Watched most of the 1st season of Kingdom last night. It was pretty good. I mean, you get what you expect to get, in a way – it’s zombies in an old-time Korea setting. And the characters and situations are all familiar, too. But it’s well-made, and if you’re into zombies and this kind of setting, it’s a lot of fun.

And yeah, it did feel kind of weird to watch a series about  a zombie plague these days.

Castlevania

S2. Ep 4

That ending…. Oh shit.

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Todd

Ben wrote:

Castlevania

S2. Ep 4

That ending…. Oh shit.

You’re gonna love the series 2 finale.

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Uncle Retrospective, Ben, Todd

I’ll try and keep these short:

Safe – Julianne Moore plays a wealthy, repressed housewife who begins suffering bad reactions to air pollution and household chemicals. Her home and all the trappings of her comfortable lifestyle turn against her, and the scenes depicting her building dread over ordinary objects and spaces are straight out of a David Lynch film.

Hour of the Wolf – Great movie, with some very effective horror toward the end. Max von Sydow plays a reclusive painter–and obvious stand-in for director Ingmar Bergman–who is slowly losing his grip on reality. Nightmare figures from his dreams begin to intrude on his real life, and his wife (Liv Ullman) is left wondering if his madness has infected her as well.

Brewster McCloud – Weird movie. Like Hour of the Wolf, much of its symbolism probably only makes sense to its director (Robert Altman). Bud Cort plays a youth who hides out in a fallout shelter in the Houston Astrodome as he works on building a pair of artificial wings. Meanwhile, he’s suspected for a string of murders; all the victims had inconvenienced him in some way. That probably makes it sound more interesting than it actually is. It’s more of an oddball comedy but the humor is barely there and it becomes quite grating as it goes along. There’s a great car chase toward the end, though.

Gosford Park – I watched this with my wife, figuring she’d like it as she’s a big fan of The Crown. I was right, she loved it. I’d seen it before but I liked it even more the second time knowing where the story was leading (and that it’s not in any way a conventional murder mystery). One of the best casts ever assembled and the ending is still a total gut punch. Kelly Macdonald, Helen Mirren, Emily Watson, Clive Owen, and Maggie Smith put in excellent work, and Stephen Fry is very amusing as an absolutely useless detective.

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DavidM, lorcan_nagle, Dave

I’ve never been a big period/costume drama fan particularly, but I thought Gosford Park was brilliant, well written and with a great cast. And I especially liked the sound design and the way the conversations overlap as you move through the house.

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lorcan_nagle, Will_C

Yeah, that’s one of Altman’s signatures, I like it a lot too. I think he pioneered it back in the 70s. It features in all his films but is especially noticeable in the ones with big ensembles, like McCabe & Mrs. Miller, The Player, and Gosford Park.

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Dave

lorcan_nagle wrote:

Ben wrote:

Castlevania

S2. Ep 4

That ending…. Oh shit.

You’re gonna love the series 2 finale.

Episode 9 is a a wonder to behold, too.

Todd wrote:

You’re gonna love the series 2 finale.

Talking of: Holy. Fuck.

Talk about throwing everything up in the air. The Ep 2.07 fight was suitably epic in both ideas and the execution of them.  After that? Just a case of picking up the pieces.

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Uncle Retrospective, lorcan_nagle

All set to the score of the Castlevania games. It was bloody tearful in Alucard’s room. They managed to make me feel sad for the big bad.

Alright, Disney+ day has arrived.  How many Simpsons can I watch while working from home?

The final episode of This Country was a nice way to close out the series – even if I think it’s a bit unforgivable that they included the final joke of the entire series in one of the trailers.

It’s a gentle, natural, real-feeling show that manages to juggle fairly low-key observational stuff (sometimes serious, sometimes funny) with more overtly comedic and silly moments and make it all work together. Sometimes it follows sitcom logic and sometimes it’s more like a drama, and the final episodes have kept us guessing with a muted mixture of both (particularly when it comes to the vicar’s decision to move on).

But the real key to it is its low-key charm – these characters feel like real, likeable and fully-realised people and I’ll miss seeing them and their slow rural lives in the same way as I miss the Detectorists.

I also just finished the first season of Avenue 5, which sticks with yo-yo-ing between desperate hope and chaotic madness until the very end.

It’s good but I feel like it’s in a position to get even better in the next series now that the cast is fully established.

Plus John Finnemore has been in the last couple of episodes, so there’s that.

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Todd, lorcan_nagle

saga wrote:

Alright, Disney+ day has arrived.  How many Simpsons can I watch while working from home?

We got my inlaws code for Disney+ so finally got around to seeing Toy Story 4. Very familiar feeling to the other films. While it didn’t really do anything new it was fun never the less. Also, holy shit – how good does the animation look?! Backgrounds and inanimate objects look photorealistic.

Yeah, there’s stuff in Toy Story 4 that just looks utterly realistic. It’s uncanny.

(They should just shoot real backgrounds and animate the characters over them, it’d probably work out cheaper.)

Shrek 2

It’s a fairly loose collection of scenes but the simple plot does it’s job, family problems give it some extra depth-ish.

The CG looks very dated, but the film is still fun, with good selection of music as well.

Anyway, I signed up for a Disney+ free trial too and saw there’s only the first two episodes of Mandalorian on there. Are they rolling it out weekly in the UK too?

It’s a bit cheeky given that the whole thing is available elsewhere already, but I understand them not wanting to let people watch the whole thing before the free trial is up.

Talking of Disney+, we started on the first Avengers movie tonight with the kids. We got about 40 minutes in so far and they’re enjoying it but still waiting for it to really get going. I forgot there was so much setup to get through.

(I just forgot that there’s so much reacquainting audiences with the characters – I guess the later films were more able to be confident that people would already be somewhat familiar with everyone.)

Anyway, it’s a nice reminder of why audiences got hooked on Marvel in a big way. It’s very charming and fun.

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Miqque

Bruce wrote:

Also, holy shit – how good does the animation look?! Backgrounds and inanimate objects look photorealistic.

Pixar have reached that level now. While it isn’t a great film (it basically has the same plot as Finding Nemo) the backgrounds in The Good Dinosaur are incredible.

garjones wrote:

the backgrounds in The Good Dinosaur are incredible.

There are moments in that movie where I was almost convinced they had actually filmed elements of it. Textures like wet rocks and stone and mud that were just utterly believable.

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garjones

It’s all exactly the same technology that’s used in live action movies. Same software, same hardware and a lot of the same people.

The look that’s achieved is down to what the creative leadership (the directors and producers) choose?

Personally, I think the ability to achieve photorealism sometimes shows up some bad creative choices. Movies like ‘The Good Dinosaur’ put cartoonish character designs in a very real looking world. To me, that’s a mismatch that I find distracting.

And then there’s ‘Cats’…

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Todd

I have one ep of Altered Carbon left.

I hate it so much, but I will finish it. How can something with so many interesting ideas be this boring?

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lorcan_nagle

Watched Knives Out on the weekend – it was… fine. The cast were all great, and I’d love to see more of the Benoit Blanc character, but the ending was a bit convoluted. It’s a better piece than Joker but only just.

SteveUK wrote:

It’s all exactly the same technology that’s used in live action movies. Same software, same hardware and a lot of the same people. The look that’s achieved is down to what the creative leadership (the directors and producers) choose?

Yes, and it’s interesting to see that some of the Pixar movies still go for a more stylised, less photo-realistic world. Which often works better, I think.

But in Toy Story the realism of the world (and the ever-improving textures and details for the toys) helps to sell the core idea of real toys coming to life really well.

SteveUK wrote:

Personally, I think the ability to achieve photorealism sometimes shows up some bad creative choices. Movies like ‘The Good Dinosaur’ put cartoonish character designs in a very real looking world. To me, that’s a mismatch that I find distracting.

Scott McCloud goes into some detail on this technique in Understanding Comics, (talking about it as ‘masking’).

The theory as he explains it is that it’s easier for the viewer to identify with and engage with simplified, abstracted characters – but it’s also easier to buy into their world if it’s as recognisable and detailed as possible. The contrast is between the character that you’re supposed to ‘be’ and the world that you’re meant to be immersed in.

As well as comics examples like Tintin, Asterix and Cerebus he also cites Disney movies as having done this since they first got into animation.

It’s a technique that really works for me but i’ve heard other people say it doesn’t for them. I can understand the mismatch feeling jarring. And especially so given that the more realistic side of animation can now be truly photo-realistic.

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DavidM, Uncle Retrospective

I remember that from McCloud too and I agree it very much  works for me.

Nick Abadzis’ Hugo Tate is an interesting take on it all, where the lead character just starts with two dots for eyes in a circle for a face. His features become more realistic as the story progresses.

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Dave

Yeah… no.

But since it’s subjective, carry on.

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Todd

Worth acknowleding that even though it generally works for me, it’s one of those techniques that can be done badly and feel like a mismatch. Particularly when it comes to different animation techniques being used at the same time – I remember watching some late ’90s/early ’00s anime stuff that used both hand-drawn and fairly primitive CGI animation elements that just didn’t look like they belonged on the screen together.

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Todd

Uncle Retrospective wrote:

I have one ep of Altered Carbon left.

I hate it so much, but I will finish it. How can something with so many interesting ideas be this boring?

Season 1 or 2?  I really loved both.  Can’t get enough of it.

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Christian

Andrew wrote:

Watched Knives Out on the weekend – it was… fine. The cast were all great, and I’d love to see more of the Benoit Blanc character, but the ending was a bit convoluted. It’s a better piece than Joker but only just.

Really? I thought it was all straightforward at the end especially for a whodunnit.

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Will_C, Todd

Life for a corner shop in the 1970’s;

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000ggjz/back-in-time-for-the-corner-shop-series-1-4-1970s

It includes a section on the severe economic crisis that affected the UK (and the wider world) in the era. Blackouts, three days weeks and rocketing prices.

Plus some great music;

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DavidM

RonnieM wrote:

Uncle Retrospective wrote:

I have one ep of Altered Carbon left.

I hate it so much, but I will finish it. How can something with so many interesting ideas be this boring?

Season 1 or 2?  I really loved both.  Can’t get enough of it.

I was very disappointed by series 2.  At times it felt like a literal copy of series 1, down to plot beats like Kovacs being saved from fighting in a bloodsport by a woman from his past happening at the same point in the series progression.  By splicing bits from books 2 and 3 together with little care for what actually made the books work, it diluted the power of those stories, and just wound up being meh.

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Uncle Retrospective

RonnieM wrote:

Season 1 or 2?  I really loved both.  Can’t get enough of it.

Season 2. For most of the reasons Lorcan says. It’s just deathly dull and doesn’t work for me at all.

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lorcan_nagle

It worked fine for me, but I am glad that I haven’t read the books (I only read the first one), or my reaction would probably have been like Lorcan’s.

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Todd

SteveUK wrote:

Christel and I watched it this past Sunday. We binged the whole thing. Many times, we looked at each other in complete shock. We really enjoyed it.

I remember that guy from Last Podcast on the Left; they talked quite a bit about him when the story broke. Pretty insane character.

I think I’m going to watch this. Broaden my mind a bit.

lorcan_nagle wrote:

I was very disappointed by series 2.  At times it felt like a literal copy of series 1, down to plot beats like Kovacs being saved from fighting in a bloodsport by a woman from his past happening at the same point in the series progression.  By splicing bits from books 2 and 3 together with little care for what actually made the books work, it diluted the power of those stories, and just wound up being meh.

It really worked for me.  While some of the beats were similar, it felt like the second season was about different things.  I felt Season 1 was very much about life, death, age and youth.  Season 2 very much felt like it was about memory and loss.  I think it’s a strength that it can be a bit formulaic while playing with other elements.

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Christian

I watched the horror movie Society last night. I wish I had watched it with a crowd, it’s definitely a “so bad it’s good” movie. Really funny and there’s a lot of brilliant Cronenbergian body horror at the end, in an orgy scene no less. The ending is so disgusting that the only way they could do it was by casting pretty much all unknowns (the actors with the highest profiles are a guy from Baywatch and a Playboy Playmate).

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Uncle Retrospective, lorcan_nagle

Watched Society when it came out.

It was completely fucked up then, I think I’ll have to rewatch

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lorcan_nagle, Will_C

It’s free on Prime right now if you have that!

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Uncle Retrospective, lorcan_nagle

Watched Yesterday – it was a nice, lighthearted film in these somewhat dark, stressful times. The cast were good except for Kate McKinnon, who was also handed a bad script/part.

Spoilers

Lots of missed opportunities with the story though; there’s no Oasis in a world without the Beatles but there’s still Coldplay and Radiohead (Coldplay wouldn’t exist without Oasis and Radiohead wouldn’t get to “In Rainbows” without Oasis)? He’s got a Killers poster on his wall – they’re directly inspired by Oasis so they should be gone too. The Rolling Stones first hit was a Lennon/McCartney song; without it would they have been successful, and successful enough to still be together and performing in 2019? Coke, cigarettes, and Harry Potter don’t exist but somehow Ed Sheeran and James Corden’s lives turned out exactly the same as in our Beatles-full world? Our dude goes to visit a still living John Lennon, but doesn’t check in with any other members of the band.

I was quite surprised that the ending isn’t a “it was all a dream” cop-out, with things going back to normal.

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DavidM

Yesterday is on HBO these days but I can’t bring myself to watch it as I am a Beatles fan…
Sorry.

ON a side note:
I would like to start a thought provoking thread on binge watch recommendations in
this quarantine time, but this thread serves the same purpose. Although no one is
mentioning the Wire yet… ha ha…

The relatives have the TV while I have the PC so I will stream. I will be patient and
wait for Cobra Kai, the Boys etc. next month…

Finished Season 2 of Altered Carbon. It was okay. I’d give it a C+/B-, which is also give the first season. It was entertaining but nothing groundbreaking. The story probably could have been told in 5-6 episodes, though. It was decent enough.

I then watch the anime film, Altered Carbon Resleeved. It had a surprisingly good story that was ruined by hideous animation. The whole thing looked like a 20 year old video game. Character movements and facial expressions were horrendous. It’s a little over an hour so it’s not that much of a time investment.

Al-x wrote:

Yesterday is on HBO these days but I can’t bring myself to watch it as I am a Beatles fan… Sorry.

I’m also a Beatles fan – it’s a loving ode to the group’s music, really.

Andrew wrote:

there’s no Oasis in a world without the Beatles but there’s still Coldplay and Radiohead

It was a funny moment because everybody knows the wannabe connection between the Beatles and Oasis. The same connection isn’t as obvious with those other bands, and so wouldn’t be as funny. It’s meant to be humorous, not “virtual history” accurate.

Al-x wrote:

Yesterday is on HBO these days but I can’t bring myself to watch it as I am a Beatles fan…
Sorry.

And Andrew is right, Al; if you’re a fan of the Beatles (as I am) you will enjoy this film.

Andrew wrote:

Radiohead wouldn’t get to “In Rainbows” without Oasis

 

Well, this the most insane thing I’ve read on the internet in a long time.

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DavidM, garjones, Andrew, Dave

I do have one pet peeve with “Yesterday”:

Part of the movie is about the guy’s search to discover the lyrics to Eleanor Rigby, probably my favourite Beatles song. And the SONG NEVER GETS PLAYED!!!!