What’re you watching now?

Topic

What movies and TV shows are you watching?

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A friend called me up after watching Geostorm. He claimed, adamantly, that he wasn’t venting his own frustration and insisted he had called for the sole purpose of warning me.  Cue the Barbara Streisand Effect.

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Todd

[Sean Robinson]

I also finally watched Star Wars episode #9 and am just glad it’s all over.
Don’t think I can re-watch these (7-9) anytime in the near future, and maybe only if I bump into them during the next pandemic.
Never imagined I just wouldn’t give a fuck, but there you go.

Rogue One was very good, and the best of these latest ones.
That with Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back (the best) are the only ones I care about.
__________________________________________

Had a better time with a couple of indy movies lately.
First I watched The Endless (2017) and then Resolution (2012)
There is a connection, but it’s not a proper sequel so viewing order is flexible and either way has it’s benefits.

The Endless is two brothers, Justin & Aaron (who are also the co-directors (Benson & Moorhead) and using their real first names) returning to visit the “UFO Death Cult” they escaped as kids only to find things normal, maybe even better than their lives.
Yes, some weird stuff is going on (try not to find out beforehand, ok?) but it really is about the two brothers and their need to figure things out (and I have to think when it came to naming the movie they were sad “Resolution” was taken…).

In Resolution a friend is trying to get another friend off drugs…
It’s more than that, but I find it hard to be vague and describe it.
I very much enjoyed both, but Endless is a bit better (looks like they had more money and are better filmmakers by this point).

I was given as a gift, but I think both are on Netflix. Give it a shot.

• This reply was modified 4 years, 7 months ago by Sean Robinson.

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SteveUK, Todd

SteveUK wrote:

As dark as ‘2012’ was, it was self-aware, and ‘Day After Tomorrow’ had it’s spectacle and politics clear in its mind.

Say what you will about Roland Emmerich, but he knows how to make those movies work as well as they can. What he does isn’t for me, but he’s good at it.

Saw The Imitation Game. It’s a good movie, though there are some unimaginatively cliché moments in it (like that Spartacus bit where everybody goes, Well, then you have to fire me, too!). But it seems like its so inaccurate when it comes to the actual Alan Turing and what happened at Bletchley Park that it might as well have been entirely fictional.

It’s sincere, but yes they streamlined a lot of his life and how things worked at Bletchley. That’s fairly normal for biopics but it means you never get the truth, just a sketch of a person.

My real issue with the film was the jumping back and forth in his life. Just when the emotions are building and you’re connecting with the people, they shift forwards or backwards by decades.

I get what they were going for, but I found it distracting.

Yeah, I mean, I get that you’re creating a dramatised version of a character and his life, but… I mean, every thing that was central to the movie was made up, in this case. Turing could apparently be quite charming and was rather well-liked. Denniston never tried to fire him or didn’t understand what Turing was doing, but was an experienced cryptoanalyst himself. Turing didn’t build the machine himself; there were in fact over 200 of them built, by engineers. Turing didn’t have any contact whatsoever to the MI6 guy, nor to the Russian spy. Obviously, the codebreakers weren’t the ones to decide how the information they decoded was used in the war. (I am getting this from wikipedia myself, of course – I am not an expert on Alan Turing!)

It’s not a sketch of the person Alan Turing or what happened at Bletchley Park, really. It’s an entirely ficional story that doesn’t have much to do with either. It’s still a pretty good movie, and it’s still important for drawing attentioned to what was done to him after the war, but… it’s a bit of a shame it doesn’t have more to do with Alan Turing, or Bletchley Park – and that most of the derivations are pretty cliché (the lone autistic genius unliked by everyone who in the end gets everybody on board with his genius, the obnoxious boss who just doesn’t get it and so on).

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DavidM

It’s definitely one of those films that’s inspired by events. There was slightly less wrong as regards the scenes depicting Turing’s early years.

Resolution and The Endless are well worth a watch. But if I say too much about either it would spoil the effect.

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Christian, Sean Robinson

Hasbro streamed more full episodes of G.I. Joe, all multi-parters, including “Arise Serpentor Arise”.

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Todd

What We Do In The Shadows is just fucking hilarious. Great writing, wonderful characters and fantastic performances just make this series. It just keeps getting better.

After rewatching this week’s episode, I’m now convinced that the character of Colin Robinson is the secret to the show’s success. He is a great counterbalance to the three traditional vampires. He provides a weirdly wonderful symmetry to the rest of the cast.

I really love this show.

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Uncle Retrospective

Todd wrote:

After rewatching this week’s episode, I’m now convinced that the character of Colin Robinson is the secret to the show’s success. He is a great counterbalance to the three traditional vampires. He provides a weirdly wonderful symmetry to the rest of the cast.

Haven’t seen the latest episode yet but: Hard agree on everything you said.

Colin Robinson does set the show apart from the preceding movie, he doesn’t just give the gang a balancing persona, he is also a link (albeit not a reliable one) to the human world. Guillermo does that too, but Colin Robinson is not subservient. They got just the right actor for him.

I also find Guillermo increasingly interesting as a character. I thought he was a weak link in the first season, but now? Acting and character development is en pointe.

Anonymous wrote:

I also find Guillermo increasingly interesting as a character. I thought he was a weak link in the first season, but now? Acting and character development is en pointe.

Agree. And I love that Lazlo constantly refers to him as Gizmo.

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We had a group watch of ‘Paranormal Activity 3’ last night.

A couple of friends had seen it and wanted to watch the rest of us jump via Zoom, but it really wasn’t that jumpy a film. In fact it wasn’t very much of anything.

There’s a certain amount of dread because you know you’re watching a ghost story and the ghost could appear anywhere, at any time, but in this film it mostly doesn’t.

And the published budget is $5m.

That must be mostly producer fees because the film has a couple of set-piece effects and the rest would cost a few tens of thousands.

The global box office was $207m, so no-one lost their shirts on this anyway.

Upgrade

Which I missed until now.

The trailer makes it looks like a revenge-driven action movie but it’s got more going on that just a Cyber-Punisher story.

And I wasn’t in the mood for “more”. I gave up partway through, I’ll try again another day.

“Apostle”

I liked it. Old-fashioned horror, with Michael Sheen giving a great cult leader of this 19th-century cult inhabiting an island. The something more that is going on with the cult in this case is pretty cool; I like the idea of how these guys found an old god – or that’s how I’d interpret her – and prospered by keeping her prisoner and forcing her to accept their blood offerings.

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Will_C

I got the 7 day HBO free trial to watch Westwworld and also used it to watch some movies. The most recent one was Alita Battle Angel. It was very pretty and had good fight choreography. None of the actors really stuck out except Ed Skrein. He does a very good job at playing arrogant, vain villains. It was like Francis from Deadpool had reappeared 500 years later.

Watched Midsommar. Very good. It does let you know early that it can be dark, but you get lulled into a false sense of security (especially with it being in daylight and beautiful scenery).
Things will get weird, dark, disturbing even.

I did enjoy this psychological horror, but it’s not for everyone (watch who you suggest it to.

And it sticks with you the next day where you can piece together how things really played out…

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Will_C

I watched The Limey (it’s very good), so now I know what John Constantine probably sounds like. A young Terence Stamp would’ve been the perfect actor to play him.

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Todd

Couple of iPlayer watches.

Peter Sellers: A State of Comic Ecstasy. I’ve see some of his films and enjoyed his performances. But he’s one of these big stars that was a bit before my time. This touches on his acting work, but it’s mainly seen through the lens of his romantic life. Lots of talking heads and archive footage. A little dry at times but worth a watch.

Also flew through Normal People. I’m a sucker for a bittersweet romance story. So 12, 30 minute episodes of this was like crack to me. Fantastically acted, written and directed. I totally fell in love with the characters, and was gutted when it ended..Definitely my favourite show for quite a while.

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garjones, Todd

Currently watching THE USUAL SUSPECTS, Bryan Singer’s magnum opus before he got involved in superhero flicks. It’s one of my favorite films in my favorite genre. This time around I’m paying attention to the performances of the supporting actors: Chazz Palminteri, Dan Hedaya, Pete Postlethwaite and Giancarlo Esposito in particular. Big surprise this time around is seeing Clark Gregg (Phil Coulson from the Phase 1 MCU films and Agents of SHIELD) as one of the doctors treating the Hungarian survivor of the massacre on the ship.

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Dave

Watched Upload, a new amazon original series by Greg Daniels (who was a writer on The Office and Parks&Rec and that kind of thing, apparently). It was pretty good. Core concept is that in the future, people pay to be uploaded into an afterlife, and the more money you have, the more luxurious your heaven is. The show follows a guy who died young and now has to adjust to being in Lakeview, a 19-th-century-luxury-hotel afterlife and being dead and figuring out that he doesn’t actually like his girlfriend, who is quite possessive of him and because she’s paying for his afterlife actually kind of owns him and he’s also falling in love with his (alive) service person. And there’s also a crime subplot about him having been murdered. So it’s a part sci-fi, part sci-fi satire, romance crime sitcom. And it all works pretty well together.

Christian your comment is a future echo of my early comment.

This dovetails with my theory that you are my tall counterpart from the German mirror universe

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Christian

Anonymous wrote:

the German mirror universe

Ah so THAT’S why it’s called Der Spiegel…

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Christian

Back to the Future.

Although I did change the channel for a few minutes at
the attempted rape scene, but I came back in time for
the punch in the mouth…

Attempted rape, attempted incest and a white guy inventing rock and roll.  It’d be amazing to see the reaction to such a movie being released these days.

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Todd

Christian wrote:

Watched Upload, a new amazon original series by Greg Daniels (who was a writer on The Office and Parks&Rec and that kind of thing, apparently). It was pretty good. Core concept is that in the future, people pay to be uploaded into an afterlife, and the more money you have, the more luxurious your heaven is. The show follows a guy who died young and now has to adjust to being in Lakeview, a 19-th-century-luxury-hotel afterlife and being dead and figuring out that he doesn’t actually like his girlfriend, who is quite possessive of him and because she’s paying for his afterlife actually kind of owns him and he’s also falling in love with his (alive) service person. And there’s also a crime subplot about him having been murdered. So it’s a part sci-fi, part sci-fi satire, romance crime sitcom. And it all works pretty well together.

Yeah this was pretty decent despite the obvious low budget… interesting idea, and a very scary one on terms of how real that would probably end up being (the agressive marketing, the predatory practises, etc). Still, they kinda messed up here and there (like with the old billionaire), but it was fine, I’ll be interested in watching a S2 if that happens.

I liked the old billionaire!

Ye but he doesn’t make sense… he IS a billionaire, he could pay for the very best avatar, as in young, strong, handosme and all that… why stay in that old decrepit body? They didn’t think that one through… =/

I liked the old billionaire. It was yer man from the X-Files.

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Christian

Charlie Brooker’s Antiviral Wipe is the huge laugh that I needed at the moment in the middle of all this craziness. Well worth a look.

Antiviral Wipe was indeed a hilarious look back at this whole mess. Occasionally terrifying, such as Boris shaking hands like there’s no tomorrow in mid March – and “nearly becoming the first prime minister to die in office since Gordon Brown.”

What we do in the Shadows, season 2 episode 6.

Holy shit, that’s Mark Hamill!

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Todd

Anonymous wrote:

What we do in the Shadows, season 2 episode 6.

Holy shit, that’s Mark Hamill!

No, that’s Jim the Vampire. It says so on the card.

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Jon wrote:

Ye but he doesn’t make sense… he IS a billionaire, he could pay for the very best avatar, as in young, strong, handosme and all that… why stay in that old decrepit body? They didn’t think that one through… =/

Yeah, there were a lot of old people there. I first assumed you just stayed with the body you had when you died for some reason, but there was aunt whatshername, so… I guess they never came up with a reason for that.

But I didn’t mind it when it came to creepy billionaire guy. I mean, he is clearly enjoying himself so immensely just being who he is, I can easily believe he’d just decide to stick with it.

Anonymous wrote:

I liked the old billionaire. It was yer man from the X-Files.

THAT’S where I knew him from! Kept bothering me that I couldn’t place him.

I didn’t specify which man for those who haven’t watched yet. I thought it was intentional casting to add to the whole conspiracy angle.

Oh and they did have an explanation for the old people. There were a couple of reasons.

Todd wrote:

No, that’s Jim the Vampire. It says so on the card.

You’re absolutely right, but you gotta admit there’s a striking resemblance.

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Todd

Anonymous wrote:

Todd wrote:

No, that’s Jim the Vampire. It says so on the card.

You’re absolutely right, but you gotta admit there’s a striking resemblance.

BTW, I really enjoyed that new guy, Jackie Daytona. What an awesome human from Arizona.

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Will_C, Rocket

Quite inspirational character. Props to the special effects team for transitioning between him and Lazlo so effortlessly.

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Will_C, Todd

Has anybody watched Carter? I only discovered it recently and missed season 1 but I’ve been really enjoying season 2.

The premise is that Harley Carter (Jerry O’Connell, looking so old that it took me ages to remember what else I knew him from) is a washed-up actor best known for playing a long-running TV detective. Now retired from acting he has become a private investigator, using the fictional “skills” he learned playing the character to solve real world crimes. And he’s a incompetent idiot, but he’s also somehow a great detective, much to the disgust of the local police department. In tone it feels a bit like Psyche, where it’s mostly played for laughs but still has interesting mysteries.

But what I really like about it is that Carter is always relating things to how they would work on his TV show, but it’s actually how they are working on this TV show. So he’ll say something like “The casting director has probably made this guy fat and bald,” and when they meet the guy he’s fat and bald. Or, “This surprise revelation means we’re about to go into a commercial break,” then they go into a commercial break. He’s not actually aware that he’s on TV, except… he’s aware he’s on TV . It’s genius.

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Dave, Todd, Martin Smith

DavidM wrote:

(Jerry O’Connell, looking so old that it took me ages to remember what else I knew him from)

I remember the first time I noticed O’Connell in an adult acting role, and realizing “Shit! That’s the fat kid from Stand By Me!!”

[lorcan_nagle]

DavidM wrote:

The premise is that Harley Carter (Jerry O’Connell, looking so old that it took me ages to remember what else I knew him from) is a washed-up actor best known for playing a long-running TV detective. Now retired from acting he has become a private investigator, using the fictional “skills” he learned playing the character to solve real world crimes

Wasn’t that the plot of that one sitcom Conan O’Brien wrote and starred Adam West?  Only had a pilot?

• This reply was modified 4 years, 7 months ago by lorcan_nagle.

[lorcan_nagle]

lorcan_nagle wrote:

DavidM wrote:

The premise is that Harley Carter (Jerry O’Connell, looking so old that it took me ages to remember what else I knew him from) is a washed-up actor best known for playing a long-running TV detective. Now retired from acting he has become a private investigator, using the fictional “skills” he learned playing the character to solve real world crimes

Wasn’t that the plot of that one sitcom Conan O’Brien wrote and starred Adam West?  Only had a pilot?

• This reply was modified 4 years, 7 months ago by lorcan_nagle.

LOOKWELL!!!

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DavidM, lorcan_nagle

Just caught up with Last Leg: Locked Down Under ahead of tonight’s second episode.

Exactly what I needed.

Well this board ate my post again.

I just watched Kingsman for the first time in ages and really enjoyed it again.

The sequel isn’t great, but the first film is fine Friday night entertainment.

I’m looking forward to the prequel… when the pandemic subsides.

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Sean Robinson, Todd

The Blacklist 7.19

This was the season finale that, due to COVID-19, was completed with “graphic novel style“ animation mixed with footage they already had in the can. It took them 5 weeks to do the animation.

(Note: I’m not getting into the story because unless you’ve been watching for the past 7 years, it would be meaningless.)

While the animation looked like cutscenes from a 20 year old video game, I salute the ingenuity and labor it took to make it happen.

Overall, I found the animation distracting to the story. If it had been plot driven rather than a matter of necessity, I think it would have worked better. As it was, it just transitioned from live action to animation and back simply because it had to due to real life. But still, kudos to doing their best to finish the episode given the circumstances.

More on that episode;

<I>The Blacklist</I> EP Reveals How the Show Pulled Off Its Half-Animated Season Finale — Plus, Grade the Episode

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Todd

Given they’re renewed for an 8th season, why not just hold off and finish it when filming resumes (even if that means having to reshoot some bits)? They’ve already lost three episodes off the end of the season, why not one more? Seems an odd choice doing an half-animated episode like this.

Also, regarding the content itself, I stopped watching the Blacklist at the end of season 5. I did happen to catch a bit of season 7 ep 1 when it aired over here a couple of weeks ago and caught Liz succinctly explaining who Red is to her, which was interesting. Turns out that’s already been retconned into not being true. This in the interview made me eye-roll like mad. “This is a big lead — one that offers the first real glimpse into who Reddington is and why he entered Liz’s life.” It’s been seven seasons! They’re only now doing “a first real glimpse”? I think I made the right choice in bailing on the show.

Martin Smith wrote:

Given they’re renewed for an 8th season, why not just hold off and finish it when filming resumes (even if that means having to reshoot some bits)? They’ve already lost three episodes off the end of the season, why not one more? Seems an odd choice doing an half-animated episode like this.

Yeah, I don’t really see the problem… I mean, they usually end the season on a cliff hanger, so it doesn’t really matter…

I also bailed a long time ago on that show… don’t even remember when, but about the time they killed the old lady and they tried their spin-off show… the show was super weak already, hard to believe it’s still going =/

I watched a couple comedy series recently:

Solar Opposites – If you like Rick and Morty, you should like this. I do, and did. The characters don’t stand out as much but there’s a lot of R&M’s sci-fi mayhem (with ridiculous body counts) and world-building. It’s about four aliens who escape their exploded planet and crash-land on Earth where they move into suburbia and pretend to be a family. They don’t hide that they’re aliens and no one seems too bothered by it.

The two kids kidnap humans who annoy them, shrink them down, and keep them in a glass ant farm-type contraption. Inside, the humans build a society that’s basically Escape from New York/Mad Max meets The Borrowers. There’s a whole episode set in the farm and it’s the best of the show.

Pretty funny show, similar vibe to What We Do in the Shadows with the aliens often misinterpreting mundane human activities in zany ways.

Upload – Great concept, some good ideas in executing that concept, the lead actress (Andy Allo) is one of the most beautiful women I’ve ever seen, but this is not a good show. The humor is often cringey and there are just too many missed opportunities and things they overlooked with the sci-fi world-building.

I’m no sports fan but I kept hearing how good “The Last Dance” was so we watched the first two episodes last night – so far very good. It’s not too technical and is really about the personalities and politics of it all, with the three main players (Jordan, Pippen, and Rodman), plus the coach, owner, and manager clashing over various things.

Very much looking forward to the rest (I was a casual fan back in the 90s, so some of the names are triggering long buried memories).

(Even as a non-sports guy, I bristled at the US-centric opinion offered early on that Jordan joins Ali and Babe Ruth as the greatest sportsperson ever – there might be some football/soccer and cricket players that can lay claim to a place there…)

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Todd

We watched Spies In Disguise last night, an animated movie that offers a new spin on that age-old story “What If James Bond got turned into a pigeon?”

It’s actually a more traditional spy adventure than that makes it sound – globetrotting action, lots of gadgets, the agent framed for a crime he didn’t commit and a central macguffin that will allow the disfigured bad guy to kill all the undercover spies, just like Skyfall – but played for laughs and pitched perfectly at the under-10s.

Will Smith is great as the smug Bond-type character and Tom Holland is great as the geeky Q-style lead character who is trying to lead the world away from violent solutions.

Lots of laughs and decent action, this was better than I expected.

Finished Walking Dead Season 9. Very solid season; I still like this show. But damn, there is still very little plot armour around in the Walking Dead.

We’ve been watching a lot of classic Mel Blanc Looney Tunes with the kid. She’s been enjoying it but, to be honest she enjoys any old rubbish, but calling some of this stuff classic sells it short. Stuff like Duck Amuck is just brilliant.

That said, some of it isn’t. Speedy Gonzales is a bit rasist (“Why have they all got strange voices?”) and Pepe Le Pew is more than a bit rapey.

That said, I’d rather an hour of that than more reruns of Topsy and Tim.

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Uncle Retrospective, Todd, njerry, lorcan_nagle

Will_C wrote:

I watched The Limey (it’s very good), so now I know what John Constantine probably sounds like. A young Terence Stamp would’ve been the perfect actor to play him.

I really enjoyed this and it’s a clever little film too.

Jon wrote:

hard to believe it’s still going

I think there’s one reason for that – Spader.  It’s done when he is.

Changing tack, watched Pirates of the Caribbean: Salazar’s Revenge – it’s… all-right.

The strange thing is they set up this idea of this being the finale, the one that ties everything off – and it does that – but then they add this weird-as-hell post-credits sequence that contributes sweet-fuck-all.

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Will_C

‘The American’, from 2010.

George Clooney plays an ex-soldier who works as a gunsmith for hitmen and women, he’s tried to ruthlessly cut himself off from people, but can’t make it stick, which leads to people around him getting hurt or killed.

It’s a familiar plot, but since this is a drama, the film takes a more restrained approach to it than an action movie would.

There are a couple of action scenes, it’s not a movie that turns the genre on its head, but it is more interested in tension than explosions.

I liked it. I understand that a lot of people think it’s too slow, Jason Bourne would’ve got into a lot more fights in the same story, but it worked for me.

SteveUK wrote:

‘The American’, from 2010.

I liked it too. It was restrained in an interesting way, and I felt the lack of bombastic action and the tension lent the movie quite a lot of credibility. I remember using Clooneys character as a template for an arms-dealing NPC in our roleplaying game.

 

Currently rewatching Life of Brian. Man, some of these jokes are first class. And some really wouldn’t work today.

“You were RAPED?”

“Eehh.. at first, yes…”

Never mind today, that’s not a “joke” that ever worked.

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Al-x

We’re stuck in Fireman Sam mania with our kids at the moment and all I can say is that Sam is the most dickish blowhard knobhead since Chase from Paw Patrol.

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Ben, Todd, Dave

At least he isn’t dangerously incompetent like Elvis. Everything he does feels like the start of an episode of 999.

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Bruce

saga wrote:

We’re stuck in Fireman Sam mania with our kids at the moment and all I can say is that Sam is the most dickish blowhard knobhead since Chase from Paw Patrol.

One of my collegues keeps trying to escape Paw Patrol but his kids love it, so he keeps failing to do so.

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Uncle Retrospective

David’s Daily Weather Report (the other other David, Lynch that is).

“Have a great day.”

Elvis has clearly suffered from some brain damage and yet Sam keeps dragging him out to operate heavy machinery in life threatening situations, the bastard.

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Bruce, Dave, Todd

Archer, season 1.

Binge-watching shows how they evolved the show. For example, “Phrasing” doesn’t make an appearance until a few episodes into season one, and then doesn’t reappear for a while after that.

The important thing though is that it’s still funny.

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Uncle Retrospective, Todd

<p style=”text-align: right;”>Binge-watching shows how they evolved the show. For example, “Phrasing” doesn’t make an appearance until a few episodes into season one, and then doesn’t reappear for a while after that.</p>
 

Phrasing?

I’m going to be very good and say nothing in response lest it be misconstrued. Best wishes, warmest regards.

I’m watching Taika and Friends reading James and the Giant Peach. They managed to work Phrasing into the first part. (Well, I thought phrasing. Taika did phrasing with a look and the others just giggled). Honestly, lads. It’s a long nose. Meryl Streep plays Aussie Thor as Aunt Sponge in the second episode. No really, she does. I would like to have Benedict Comblewomble’s books in Taika’s garden.

And in today’s weather report, David Lynch has blue skies and a lot of golden sunshine so that’s nice.

Rewatching Space Jam…

I’m not sure if this is the worst movie I’ve ever, EVER, seen… or if it’s somehow secretly genius. Putting this one on me “guilty pleasures” list, for sure…

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Christian

If it is, it’s a very well-kept secret.

Hidden just behind Michael Jordans acting skills, which are of course so sublime they bend light and render them both completely invisible.

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Dave

I imagine the pitch for Space Jam was “Why don’t we do Who Framed Roger Rabbit, but make it utter shite?”

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Christian, Bruce, Todd

Dave wrote:

I imagine the pitch for Space Jam was “Why don’t we do Who Framed Roger Rabbit, but make it utter shite?”

“Oh, oh! With animation that won’t hold a candle to RR!”

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Todd, Dave

So I’ve got a long weekend ahead of me (today/tomorrow are bank holiday days here), it’s father’s day but I can’t go out drinking with friends, weather’s brilliant… sounds like this might be a good time to get started on Westworld. So I’ll probably get the Sky subscription for a month and plunge into this. More than silly to get a fourth streaming service, even just for a month, but it makes more sense than buying the Westworld season – I don’t watch anything twice these days and haven’t in ages. And Sky means I can also watch Stumptown and Avenue 5 and, uh, Keeping Up with the Kardashians I guess…

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Dave

Hope you enjoy Westworld. And I think you’ll like Avenue 5.

Oh man. You are going to love the latrstbseadon of KuWtK.  Kimyes obvs future divorce reach FEVER PITCH and Kylie has this awsome idea for a franchise spa.

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Todd

Anonymous wrote:

the latrstbseadon of KuWtK

I think this was a monster in Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy.

Harumph. It’s not my fault my phone is a phone

Anonymous wrote:

Harumph. It’s not my fault my phone is a phone

Prove it.

I mean, I suppose the alternative is it’s actually one of those racist transforming robots from those Michael Bay movies.  Ask yourself this: which do you want to be the true reality?

Transformer, easy.

I’m watching the latest episode of What We Do In The Shadows and I’m starting to think there are a few energy vampires around here. Maybe I’m one?

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Todd

Oh right, you weren’t there when we started this.

The forum is actually FOR energy vampires.  The Politics thread is our version of a normal vampire orgy.

 

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Todd

Anonymous wrote:

Oh right, you weren’t there when we started this.

The forum is actually FOR energy vampires.  The Politics thread is our version of a normal vampire orgy.

 

No, Tim. You cannot have the cursed hat.

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Et tu, Elvis?

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Todd

Christian wrote:

and Avenue 5

Dave wrote:

And I think you’ll like Avenue 5.

Yeah, it’s very much like series 1 of Veep where it’s pretty good, and then hits critical mass a couple of episodes form the end of the series and it absolute gold after.

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Todd, Dave

So @garjones is Guillermo? Need to watch that guy.

[Todd]

Anonymous wrote:

So @garjones is Guillermo? Need to watch that guy.

I don’t think so. Gar engages in a lot of troll stereotyping.

• This reply was modified 4 years, 7 months ago by Todd.

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Watching True Romance.

God I love this.
Just met Dennis Hopper.
Ahhh!

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Todd, Dave

Okie dokie doggie daddy.

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Todd

Recently I caught up on the Andrei Tarkovsky movies I hadn’t watched. And rewatched Stalker, which I didn’t like much the first time I saw it. Now I’d rank it in my top 20, it’s just an incredible film, as are Andrei Rublev (I’d seen this one before), Mirror, and The Sacrifice.

Nostalghia and Ivan’s Childhood are also very good. David Lynch is still my fav but Tarkovsky is probably the most skilled director whose work I’ve seen. The man just operates on a different level. Each of his films is a profoundly spiritual experience. He can infuse any image or setting, no matter how mundane or littered with trash, with a sense of divine presence.

Next time I’m in the mood for a near-3-hour film I’ll watch Solaris again, another one I didn’t like much on first viewing. But I was still a teenager when I saw it and I think I’m ready for it now.

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Christian, lorcan_nagle, Todd

I’d started watching both The Cloverfield Paradox and Predators at some point and finished both last night. Cloverfield Paradox is really bad, even for a low-budget horror sci-fi thing. Predators was okay, I guess. Nothing special, but there’s a bit where a predator rips a guys spine out, so, you know.

I also watched a bit more of Titans because I have this vague interest in finishing season 1 of it, but when I’m watching I always remember just how bad this is… even when you’re watching it while mostly doing something else, it’s kind of hard.

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lorcan_nagle

I tried the kids on The Matrix for the first time tonight and I’m delighted that they’re really enjoying it so far. We got an hour in before bedtime (just after all the explanations and training section) and they were really disappointed we had to save the rest for tomorrow.

They get the concepts quite easily without requiring much in the way of additional explanation. It made me wonder if it’s naturally something that is more understandable and accessible for their digital-native generation. I think it’s a bit like going into something like Minecraft for them.

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DavidM, Sean Robinson, Bruce

Dave wrote:

They get the concepts quite easily without requiring much in the way of additional explanation. It made me wonder if it’s naturally something that is more understandable and accessible for their digital-native generation. I think it’s a bit like going into something like Minecraft for them.

How old are they? I don’t know if the concepts are much harder to grasp than, say, the time shenanigans of Back To The Future (II in particular)… And I had no problem at all understanding that around 7-8 years of age. But you’re probably right in that people who are well-tuned to video game concepts will have easier access to the Matrix mythology either way.

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Dave

They’re 7 and 9.

And maybe you’re right – I remember when the movie came out some people finding it a little difficult to grasp, particularly viewers from older generations. But maybe it’s not really as complicated as all that – although I do think the early scenes can be a little confusing before you know what’s going on. They leave you asking the right questions though.

(And yes, my daughter watched the BTTF trilogy last year and liked them too.)

Dave wrote:

They’re 7 and 9.

Parenting done right that you let them watch the Matrix. I’m not kidding, it’s awesome.

It’s not more violent or scary than Minecraft on any given day. Given the right context (or supervision, just watching it with them) that’s hey-cool in my book.

Anonymous wrote:

Parenting done right that you let them watch the Matrix. I’m not kidding, it’s awesome.

It’a hard deciding what to let them watch and I had a good think about the Matrix and realised that the only things I was worried about for them were a couple of disturbing ideas – the mouth-melting bit and the belly-button bug mainly, and also some of the body-horror stuff in the pods.

The violence is all fairly cartoonish and the language is fairly light swearing so those aspects didn’t concern me. And although they didn’t like some of those disturbing parts I mentioned they weren’t upset by them.

Anonymous wrote:

It’s not more violent or scary than Minecraft on any given day.

I’ve never played Minecraft, but does it have a level like the Matrix Lobby scene?

I might have to give it a try!

It’s Minecraft, it can include whatever you want to include.

But in all seriousness, violence in movies is an aspect that I consider very carefully with the kids, and I’m far more conservative about that aspect than about language or nudity for example.

Major concerns for me are how realistic, explicit and imitable it is, and we had a long chat before letting the kids watch The Matrix where we decided that the balletic gunplay and hand-to-hand fighting is so stylised and cartoonishly presented that it isn’t much difference from content that they’re already used to in videogames and cartoons that they already watch.

What is appropriate always depends on the individual child of course, and (as we’ve discussed before) ratings are such a blunt instrument as to often be useless for parents.

For my own kids I know what is likely to disturb or negatively affect them, and I’ve actually held off watching a lot of 12-rated superhero movies with them for years because I feel like the violence in them is too imitable and brutal. And there are other movies with the same 15 rating as The Matrix that I obviously wouldn’t go near with them at the moment because the content and tone is so different. But this one was ok for them.

(Also, for me a key aspect of the Matrix that mitigates the violence is that it’s essentially against avatars comparable to characters in a videogame. So we had a couple of pauses and chats early on in the movie to check that they fully understood this in anticipation of the later fight scenes.)

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DavidM, lorcan_nagle

SteveUK wrote:

I’ve never played Minecraft, but does it have a level like the Matrix Lobby scene?

The overworld (the main level) has more enemies scouring the area for players on Every Single Night than the lobby scene has. No guns though.

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lorcan_nagle

I watched No Country For Old Men recently, first time since somewhen back when I was living in Ireland, so around the time of release. Maybe even the first time I watched it since it was in the cinema.

It was way better than I remembered, maybe I’ve matured (yeah right) enough to understand and see things I didn’t see before.

The acting is fantastic, Bardem especially. The dialogues are… incredibly tense. The whole script is incredibly tense, but some of the dialogues (the coin flipping when Anton is at the gas station, same with Anton and Moss’ girlfriend) have a sense of otherwordliness to them. And the eerieness of some scenes, like the desert shootouts where the bodies have been baking in the sun for a full day, the stillness of it all in the full sunlight… Serene and nightmarish at the same time.

And I love the open-endedness of how the plot threads are resolved. I don’t know how, but it just works. It serves the tension of the movie well, never giving full release to the viewer.

I’m going to give this movie masterpiece status in my internal list. It deserves that moniker.

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Andrew, lorcan_nagle, Christian, Dave

Anonymous wrote:

I’m going to give this movie masterpiece status in my internal list. It deserves that moniker.

Glad you’ve rediscovered this great film, friendo.

If you are interested, much of the dialogue you love is lifted verbatim from the novel of the same name, written by the fantastic Cormac McCarthy.

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Andrew, lorcan_nagle, Dave

I will definitely put that book on my to-read list.

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lorcan_nagle, Dave

He initially wrote it as a screenplay. Perhaps it’s why there’s so much focus on the dialogue. McCarthy does have a good ear. The Road was quite sparse and lean too but in a different way.

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lorcan_nagle, njerry, Dave