Time for a new ‘watching’ thread!
What Are You Watching? New Season!
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I’m with Dave on this. For example, like all of us here I’m an expert on the laws of physics, having spent my entire life obeying them. And yet I (and most of us, I think) have no problem watching a superhero movie that consistently breaks them. You just accept it as part of the genre, and remember that it’s fiction, not reality.
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This leads into my thesis that all fiction is science fiction, because it all takes place on an alternate Earth where history happened differently.
Extrapolating this to its logical conclusion, the only fiction that isn’t science fiction is one where the action explicitly takes place not on Earth, as that’s not rewriting the universe as we know it
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6 BS Medical Cliches Movies and Shows Need To Stop Using
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I’m with Dave on this. For example, like all of us here I’m an expert on the laws of physics, having spent my entire life obeying them. And yet I (and most of us, I think) have no problem watching a superhero movie that consistently breaks them. You just accept it as part of the genre, and remember that it’s fiction, not reality.
It’s not entirely the same thing though really. We all like a lot of fantasy and even absurdist stuff. You have to enter something like a superhero film with a large suspension of disbelief or there’s no point watching them.
Other works, like The Crown, are presented as realistic depictions of actual events, even though we know nobody actually recorded all those conversations so there’s always an element of fiction. If Prince Charles starts reading his investiture speech in 1969 of a Kindle then I’m going to call it silly even if I am perfectly happy with a singing plant in Little Shop of Horrors.
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I made a Best Of 2020s movies list on Letterboxd if anyone’s curious:
https://letterboxd.com/willcarper/list/best-of-2010s/
Top 10:
Burning, Annihilation, The Lighthouse, Under the Skin, High Life, Long Day’s Journey into Night, Beyond the Black Rainbow, Shame, Stray Dogs, Holy Motors
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I made a Best Of 2020s movies list on Letterboxd if anyone’s curious:
https://letterboxd.com/willcarper/list/best-of-2010s/%5B/quote%5D
I made one (unordered) at the end of last year:
https://letterboxd.com/paulforegan/list/top-100-2010s/
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Finally watched The New Mutants, and I can finally say that I watched all of the XCU line of movies.
And, you know….it was pretty good. Like, pretty good in a way that made me kind of astonished at the bad rap it got when it was released. Only kind of…because when I say pretty good I mean pretty good in the way that an early-2000’s teen horror flick is pretty good. What I mean by that is that it has the same kind of tone and consistency that would allow it to slot right in alongside Final Destination or The Faculty. A very devil-may-care free-flowing attitude that is as much a benefit as it is a huge drawback. Because that style of carefree horror has it’s charms, I love the janky ridiculousness of the Final Destination movies and it keeps this style of movie from stalling out, but it also means that this movie never really feels like it has much stakes or drama. It feels aimless at times, where character building scenes and set-pieces are seemingly thrown together in an order that comes off as random and distracting. Like there’s little momentum in it’s engagement with either side.
I mean, it’s fun. I like seeing the characters hang out and get to know each other, trite as it can be, but it never gets to breathe and the horror scenes aren’t enough to full make up for it or pick up the slack. They’re almost half-formed afterthoughts at times. Still, the movie flies by. It was almost half-way over before I knew it and the only time I was bored was when it struggles to make that switch from traditional horror beats to…action-y third act bonanza. Which it never does pull off. But I at least appreciate some of the small touches it tried to pinpoint.
Overall, not the best outing. But one that I don’t regret watching, will probably watch again, and would have liked a sequel to. It’s one of those movies that really feels like a pilot episode – getting the status quo out of the way. It’s a shame we won’t get “body horror, The Thing inspired” Warlock and Doug like Boone envisioned, but at least it didn’t end on a cliffhanger.
6/10
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So, we finally finished season 1 of Evil. It was kind of frustrating because not only did it not answer any of the questions this season has already raised, it added a bunch of new questions too!
I’m still enjoying it, but I hope to god this doesn’t become like Lost, and just drag things out for half a dozen seasons whilst answering nothing to anyone’s satisfaction.
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Also, we watched Thor Ragnarok again, and it’s a movie that only improves with age. You remember the humour of course, but there’s some great character work and the action is beautifully photographed.
Karl Urban’s Skurge, though, is literally a bald Billy Butcher, same awful accent and all. I like Urban, but he doesn’t really have much range.
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Skruge is played for laughs. I am not saying it is a big stretch but it is a stretch comparing him to Billy. He is a lackey either to Loki at the beginning, Hela in the middle, or Thor at the end. Urban does a good job with what he has. Cupid(lol), Eomer, Vaako, Grimm from Doom, Dredd, Bones, Kennex(the gimp cop from Almost Human), Skurge, and Billy. They may all be similar but he does it well enough to be noticed and appreciated.
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Eomer, Vaako, Grimm from Doom, Dredd, Bones, Kennex(the gimp cop from Almost Human), Skurge, and Billy. They may all be similar but he does it well enough to be noticed and appreciated.
They’re not really all that similar… I don’t know about Cupid and I don’t really remember Doom… but there’re some differences in there… Maybe Skurge and Bones are a bit more similar because of the comedic tone, Eomer was hardly in the movies, I huess Vaako and Dredd are similar-ish in their stoic-ness… but Billy is waaaaaaaaaaaay more intense than any other role he’s played.
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Watched New Mutants, thought it was very bleh. The cast were okay, other than Anya Taylor-Joy, who was brilliant, despite her Rrrussian eccint. Most of all, it just looked really cheap, with way too many glowing eyes, PS4-level flame effects, and most egregiously, Smokey the Demon Bear. Not since cloud-Galactus have I felt so let down by a movie depiction of the Big Bad in a superhero movie.
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I don’t know about Cupid
He played Cupid on Xena. It is a bit of a joke. both he and Antony Starr got their start on Xena(being it was a NZ production) and they like to joke about it.
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Speaking of Anya Taylor-Joy….I finally caught the new adaptation of Emma (or Emma.) the other day thanks to HBOmax getting it.
I’d always planned on seeing it but never got the chance when it originally came out in theaters. And, honestly, worth the wait. As an American that went to a pretty mediocre public high school, literally the only exposure I’ve ever had to the story in any form was Clueless. And I love Clueless, it’s fun, it’s refreshingly witty in stretches, and it’s held up fairly well for how of-the-moment it is. But, you know, never having read the novel I was never quite sure about how much it actually took from it and how much was liberties.
And I guess I still don’t just by going off this new adaptation. But, in any case, there must be something to it if even this version is….well, very refreshing witty, snappy, smart, and just an impressive comedy of errors, politeness, etiquette, and frivolity – very much like Clueless. That both movies have several set-pieces in common, set-pieces I would have bet were original inventions of Clueless because of how modern the humor and the situational comedy of it all feels in that movie, is kind of a testament to how much longevity the story has.
And it’s presented well. The performances work in tandem with the colorful, ordered, aesthetic and the humor bounces back and forth, and in between, all of it. Never feels stuffy or dull, and is just in generally – very snappy. It’s fun. The only complaint I would have is that it does slightly meander a bit as it tries to reach its conclusion. But the movie somehow fitting in an anime-style nosebleed gag makes up for most of that.
Overall, I really enjoyed it, and will definitely be in my rotation for years to come. 8.5/10.
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There’s a small budget rom-com from a decade or so ago called Timer, that kinda deals with the same premise.
People find out a way to scientifically find soulmates, through an app that you graft onto your skin. It then starts a countdown that finishes the second you meet your soulmate. The conflict in the rom-com is that the main character got the app installed….but no countdown appears. Because it only works if both soulmates get the app.
And the rest of the movie is her dealing with this, and also dealing with her family, who have been affected by this technology in various ways. It’s fun, slightly somber, and a decent rainy day watch.
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At the top of your YouTube page you get a set of buttons which I assume are selection filters based on what they think you want to watch. Today, mine look like this. I have no idea why they think I want to watch Harry Potter, but everything else seems reasonable:
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I’m in a bit of a depressive stint and decided to rewatch some Pixar classics. Watching Up at the mo, and damn this movie is getting to me. I’ve burst out crying like fifteen times in the last half hour.
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For whatever reason our kids do not have any interest in Toy Story whatsoever… with the notable exception of Forky.
Why did you call one of your kids Forky?
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Has anyone here seen The Night Manager, miniseries based on the Le Carre novel?
I’m watching it now, having mixed feelings. Mosly good, though. The acting is great, and I’d expect no less from Laurie and Hiddleston.
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Yes, I watched it when it first came out and enjoyed it. Laurie and Hiddleston are good but Olivia Colman maybe outshines them both. And Tom Hollander is great fun.
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Ah ok. You’ll get there.
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I’m bingeing it right now, with some scattered pauses to play games and doomscroll.
I hope the next time I see Elizabeth Debicki she isn’t the reluctantly-married-to-the-villain damsel-in-distress, because however good her acting is it’s always boring when actors are typecast. For clarification, I last saw her in Tenet.
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I hope the next time I see Elizabeth Debicki she isn’t the reluctantly-married-to-the-villain damsel-in-distress
She’s playing Diana in the next season of The Crown, so…
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Yes I saw The Night Manager first and it did strike me how similar her role in Tenet is as the trophy wife of the big crime boss.
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well she played the gold plated leader of the Sovereign in Gotg 2 in between Night Mgr and Tenet so there is some variance
p.s. I watched the Babysitter last night. Samara Weaving was very good. I liked the kid and his neighbor as well. While his brother is more famous, i think Robbie Amell might be the better actor. they both really like to show off their body. ” Cole: why did he(Robbie) take his shirt off” :). I did not have time to watch the sequel so checked the synopsis. Don’t think I will watch it. Spoiler:: Weaving is not in most of the movie and there is a completely new love interest for Cole. The neighbor girl is played by the daughter from the X men spinoff The Gifted.
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While his brother is more famous, i think Robbie Amell might be the better actor.
Yup, he really stood out for me, too. His performance is just as good in the sequel (and probably the only thing I can say that for).
Took me a while to realise where I knew his face from: Upload.
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She’s playing Diana in the next season of The Crown, so…
Interesting role, but there’s no way I’m watching royalist propaganda.
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Finished Queen’s Gambit tonight after burning through the whole thing in just a few days.
Overall it’s a really well-made series with amazing period detail (especially the costumes and settings, if you like old art deco hotels) and a central character you come to really root for, as well as some good supporting cast.
From early on it feels like a sports movie but with chess, and it plays out that way. It’s hard to dramatise chess and the way they do it doesn’t always work, but it means they have to play more into the personal drama, which definitely does.
It’s not perfect but I thought it was very good.
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Feminist porn is still porn. Ban this sick filth! (Royalism, not porn)
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You’d probably like this version (as would I).
I want the writer of The Crown to rewrite history and let Diana live and then season six is her Kill Bill revenge story.
— Patti LaBelle's Adult Son (@wtflanksteak) November 18, 2020
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Kill Phil.
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Also, they do seem to just gloss over the IRA and the Irish struggle for independence.
The British just wouldn’t do that. It would be inhumane.
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Major was PM from 1990 to 1997.
My memory banks indicate that those years just didn’t happen. Except for 1994, when Sweden finished third in the football world cup. That happened.
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Last season was very much like an anthology series with little throughline.
I’ve felt that all the way through really (caveat I haven’t got to series 4 yet). The basic concept seems to be they centre each episode around a particular event in history and how the royals connected to it personally, rather than a retelling of British history or a through storyline for the season. Indian independence happened 5 years before the Queen ascends to the throne so it doesn’t really fit while the investiture of Charles as Prince of Wales does.
There’s some liberal abuse of history in there too. A storyline about suspicion that Harold Wilson was the Soviet spy when she meets him rather than the gallery curator doesn’t stand up as in reality he was caught a while before Wilson was elected. Dramatic license varies episode to episode, the Aberfan disaster one for example stands up very well to the actual series of events.
The worst episode in the personal connection for me was the moon landing one as apart from a visit from the astronauts it really seemed a very tentative link and shoe-horned in to do some midlife crisis storyline for Phillip which seemed pretty far fetched character-wise. It seemed a bit desperate to try and get a huge world event into the show.
Also, they do seem to just gloss over the IRA and the Irish struggle for independence.
To be technical here the Irish gained official independence in 1921. The IRA’s struggle was for re-unification of north and south and remains to this day the desire of a minority in Northern Ireland (albeit a sizeable one).
It’s like all the most long lasting conflicts that a solution is very complex which is how we ended up with a situation of rather fractious power sharing.
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a solution is very complex
Yeah, building car bombs is no joke.
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To be technical here the Irish gained official independence in 1921. The IRA’s struggle was for re-unification of north and south and remains to this day the desire of a minority in Northern Ireland (albeit a sizeable one).
It’s like all the most long lasting conflicts that a solution is very complex which is how we ended up with a situation of rather fractious power sharing.
Yeah, the Troubles is primarily a weird mix of Civil Rights movement and Civil War. It’s made complicated by NI’s status as
territory occupied by an illegitimate regimepart of the UK and up until recentlyheld hostage by the forced repopulation of the region 300 years agovery willing to remain so. It’s not as simple as the “Irish struggle for independence” because we agreed to partition in exchange for the rest of the island. If there wasn’t such terrible discrimination of Catholics in NI then the Republican movement wouldn’t have managed to gain the foothold it did.2 users thanked author for this post.
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It’s essentially the repeated problem/plan of sometimes forced and relatively divided populations. The problem being if those moving there 300 years ago don’t have a say then barely anyone does, certainly nobody in the US outside the first nations. It’s why a certain place is so very keen on its ‘settlements’.
I don’t want people to get me wrong here. I am a republican and a paid member of Yes Cymru devoted to independence, I am officially and vehemently in opposition to the concept of the United Kingdom and the royal family. The Prince of Wales with the big ears can go fuck himself, despite spending an arduous 6 weeks trying to learn Welsh he didn’t give a shit afterwards and his position is a personal affront to me.
Despite that I do feel we have to tell the truth and the NI issue of the last 50 years is not the same as ‘Irish Independence’ even if the US media likes to present it that way. I think it if were it would have ben settled decades ago.
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The Addams Family is more relatable.
Their eccentricities aside, the Addams are actually a very caring and loving family. Even Lurch is treated as one of their own. They are actually good role models.
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There’s another two. The cast will change again for S5-6. We know some of them already. Imelda Staunton will play the Queen and Jonathan Pruce as Prince Phillip. Elizabeth Debicki as Diana.
Who will play Prince Andrew?
Harvey Weinstein and two buckets of sweat.
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There’s another two. The cast will change again for S5-6. We know some of them already. Imelda Staunton will play the Queen and Jonathan Pruce as Prince Phillip. Elizabeth Debicki as Diana.
Who will play Prince Andrew?
Harvey Weinstein and two buckets of sweat.
Kevin Spacey
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I watched the new-ish movie MORTAL directed by André Øvredal. It’s in the vaguely “superhero thriller” genre in the same way that movies like Vincent Has No Scales and Brightburn, for example, or even Shyamalan’s Unbreakable or Split.
Ovredal’s TROLLHUNTER was particularly entertaining, but he hasn’t really been able to recapture that feeling of something special since. Mortal is definitely a little more than half good, but it doesn’t quite come together nor really delivers on what it promises. It intentionally is an origin story that is drawn out to a full film and I ended up really feeling like that was solely because there was no budget to film anything more than that.
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I put The Trial of the Chicago Seven on, and I’m having traumatic flashbacks to talking to cops and other officials about runnign protests
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Watched Apollo 13 again. I’ve seen it before and I know the true story but I’ll be damned if I didn’t still wind up on the edge of my seat, hoping they were going to make it back home. What a movie.
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I put The Trial of the Chicago Seven on, and I’m having traumatic flashbacks to talking to cops and other officials about runnign protests
Was that a big hassle? Not the protests, but dealing with the cops?
The Gardai is a different breed of cops. Sure, the wrong kind of person is drawn into that line of work as well as every other place, but my experience in dealing with them was memorable to say the least. Friend gets caught with 100 ecstacy pills on O2 – Sent off with a warning. Guards kept the pills. I crash into a guard outside the post office, drops my lit joint. He bends down to pick ut up, but I’m faster. We both look at each other, nod, and walk away without a word.
There’s a bigger story involving a 4AM change of shifts at a garda station mistaken for a church, the rolling of a joint at the steps and getting of with a warning, but I just got out of bed and am not arsed to write the whole thing down. I think you get the gist.
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I put The Trial of the Chicago Seven on, and I’m having traumatic flashbacks to talking to cops and other officials about runnign protests
Was that a big hassle? Not the protests, but dealing with the cops?
The Gardai is a different breed of cops. Sure, the wrong kind of person is drawn into that line of work as well as every other place, but my experience in dealing with them was memorable to say the least. Friend gets caught with 100 ecstacy pills on O2 – Sent off with a warning. Guards kept the pills. I crash into a guard outside the post office, drops my lit joint. He bends down to pick ut up, but I’m faster. We both look at each other, nod, and walk away without a word.
There’s a bigger story involving a 4AM change of shifts at a garda station mistaken for a church, the rolling of a joint at the steps and getting of with a warning, but I just got out of bed and am not arsed to write the whole thing down. I think you get the gist.
The main thing was the flashbacks to the guy in the Chicago office who denied all the protest permits. I was the Garda Liaison for the March for Choice last year, and in our one face-to-face meeting before the march – and I shit you not on this – they asked if we were sure we wanted to march down O’Connell Street because it would case a disruption. That’s the fucking point of a protest. Not to mention that was the 8th year in a row we’d put the March on, and in the 7 years I’d been organising it we always started at the same spot, marched down O’Connell Street, and then crossed the river to go to the Dáil. The only change was when the extension to the Luas lines went in and we couldn’t go around College Green any more, so we went to the Merrion Square side of the Dáil instead.
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Not to mention that was the 8th year in a row we’d put the March on, and in the 7 years I’d been organising it we always started at the same spot, marched down O’Connell Street, and then crossed the river to go to the Dáil. The only change was when the extension to the Luas lines went in and we couldn’t go around College Green any more, so we went to the Merrion Square side of the Dáil instead.
Next time just hold it on June 16 and tell the Gardai it’s a Bloomsday march.
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One of the endless repeat channels showed all of the recent BBC sitcom Ghosts on Sunday night, so I binged most of it just because I was bored.
It’s not Earth-shaking television, but it was good fun. The situations were predictable but I laughed in enough places and I liked the characters (well, the ghost characters; the non-ghost leads were non-entities, but they had the straight-man roles so that was ok).
I’d recommend it if you’re ever bored on a Sunday night
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I like Ghosts a lot, it’s gentle and charming.
Apparently there’s a Christmas special coming.
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I was watching Atlantis (the Disney one) and just having a grand time when suddenly some irish geezer decided to hold my attention span hostage with a sorta straight adaptation of Dark Dungeons. Getting some serious Stockholm syndrome over here, enjoying this far more than I had expected to.
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That made me smile a lot.
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The Crystal Maze came back recently, but now on E4, which can’t help but feel like a demotion (although it is a decent fit for the channel). The Eastern Zone that they made a big deal about introducing last year (in place of the Medieval zone) seems to have disappeared. But I don’t know if that’s because these were filmed before they introduced that (the Medieval zone tasks are older ones, and I can’t imagine they filmed these this year) or if it has actually been dropped.
I’ve found it strangely hard to keep track of the modern Crystal Maze because they keep doing celebrity specials which are in some places numbered separately but in others numbered with the main series. This is series 7, apparently, but I swear they’ve only done three with proper contestants.
Also, while trying to work this out, I saw that there was an American series broadcast at the beginning of the year, filmed on the UK set and hosted by Adam Connover from Adam Ruins Everything. Did anyone watch that?
EDIT: hang on, the copyright date at the end of the episode says 2017! But it’s definitely being advertised as a new series. Why on earth would they have sat on these episodes for three years while still showing other series?
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We watched Noelle on Disney+ as it’s only just been released here (I think it came out in the US last year before Disney+ had launched in the UK).
Our first Christmas movie of the season and it was pretty good for a kids’ film. Very frothy and light but sufficiently Christmassy and fun to make it a nice family Christmas movie, and Anna Kendrick is always watchable.
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Everyone knows all christmas movies that aren’t Die Hard are inferior. Even your kids.
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Hearing someone talk about Die Hard being the best Christmas movie is fast becoming the most reliable modern harbinger of the season.
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It’s just not Christmas until a gang of German criminals blow up the roof of a skyscraper. That’s when you know it’s time to bust out the gaudy Christmas jumper and sing some carols
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Has there been a Fairytale of New York movie yet? That seems like an easy lay up.
Not sure if two drunks having a fight in a New York jail cell is that easy a sell…
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Not sure if two drunks having a fight in a New York jail cell is that easy a sell…
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Robin enters the scene and calls Joker a cheap lousy f-word and has to be spoken to by Batman.
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But only on Radio 1.
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Tried watching Guy Ritchie’s THE GENTLEMEN last night on cable TV. Lasted about 45 minutes, but only because I was too tired to reach for the remote. Thank goodness my wife rescued me before my brain was permanently damaged. What a waste of Hugh Grant, Charlie Hunnam and Matthew McConnaughey.
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I’m going to rewatch Prometheus tomorrow, so I’m watching the ridiculously long 220-minute making-of documentary, The Furious Gods.
All of the make-up/prosthetic stuff is especially good.
It’s also interesting to see just how involved Ridley Scott is with the writing, literally going through every line of Spaithts’ script and crossing out words and filling it with notes, and Lindelof saying that a lot of his role was just writing dialogue after Ridley had explained everything that would happen in a scene beat for beat.
I rewatched Alien 3 and Resurrection recently, and didn’t hate either, but Prometheus is definitely on a different level, and it was a shame that Covenant mostly went back to being a standard Alien movie, aside from the Fassbender stuff.
I assume Disney will bring back the franchise again sometime in the next few years, but I seriously doubt they’ll try anything as ambitious as Prometheus.
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I should rewatch Prometheus myself some time soon. I really enjoyed it.
(I’m aware we’re on dangerous ground here.)
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