Time for a new ‘watching’ thread!
What Are You Watching? New Season!
- This topic has 995 replies, 34 voices, and was last updated 3 years, 10 months ago by
.
Author
-
Weirdest of all, the red bits of Spidey’s costume are treated as separate from the blue bits; so he’s essentially wearing red socks as part of his costume.
This was traditionally the case in the comics too, though. Same with the gloves.
1 user thanked author for this post.
-
-
In fairness there have been enough depictions of the costume in different ways over the years to support all kinds of different formats.
But certainly in those initial Lee/Ditko comics (which is what I grew up on) it was a costume of various pieces.
1 user thanked author for this post.
-
Weirdest of all, the red bits of Spidey’s costume are treated as separate from the blue bits; so he’s essentially wearing red socks as part of his costume.
This was traditionally the case in the comics too, though. Same with the gloves.
No, sorry, I should have been clearer. It’s different to that. The red socks (and gloves) go over a solid blue bodysuit that’s essentially a onesie. Yet the mask is treated like a hoodie, rather than a separate piece.
-
I’ve started rewatching The OC. I own it all on DVD, but I haven’t seen it since it was first on (and there’s a bunch of these very early episodes I’ve never seen before).
I never watched that at the time, but felt like I almost did by proxy with everyone talking about it. How well has it aged?
I’m only a handful of episodes in, but I’m still really liking it.
1 user thanked author for this post.
-
Weirdest of all, the red bits of Spidey’s costume are treated as separate from the blue bits; so he’s essentially wearing red socks as part of his costume.
This was traditionally the case in the comics too, though. Same with the gloves.
No, sorry, I should have been clearer. It’s different to that. The red socks (and gloves) go over a solid blue bodysuit that’s essentially a onesie. Yet the mask is treated like a hoodie, rather than a separate piece.
That sounds a bit odd. Does he still have the red bits on the main body?
I think we need images here!
-
-
I wasn’t assuming or suggesting that kids would be traumatised by the film dealing with death and existence; more that they’d be bored.
I can’t talk for other kids, but mine love the spirit-world designs and characters, the bodyswap comedy, the music, the slapstick comedy, the talking animal and the action with the psychedelic boat and the monsters; as well as engaging with the bigger ideas of the movie, which have sparked some great conversations.
So definitely not bored (and I can tell if they are as they won’t stick with a full-length movie they’re bored with, they’ll just walk away – kids are very honest critics like that.)
With movies like this that are designed to hit different points for a broad audience of both adults and kids, I think there can sometimes be an element of fixing on the details that are appealing to your group and maybe missing the stuff that’s most appealing to others. So in this case fixing on all the big philosophical aspects over the more simple comedy/visual aspects that grab kids, which Soul has a lot of.
-
Weirdest of all, the red bits of Spidey’s costume are treated as separate from the blue bits; so he’s essentially wearing red socks as part of his costume.
This was traditionally the case in the comics too, though. Same with the gloves.
No, sorry, I should have been clearer. It’s different to that. The red socks (and gloves) go over a solid blue bodysuit that’s essentially a onesie. Yet the mask is treated like a hoodie, rather than a separate piece.
That sounds a bit odd. Does he still have the red bits on the main body?
I think we need images here!
I’ll try and screencap off Disney+ when next I’m on my desktop.
-
Ok, so Disney+ is a real pain to pause accurately for screencaps, but hopefully this shows what I mean.
Spider-Man jumping out of his socks in the thumbnail and without them in the main picture:
The mask-hoodie thing:
His gloves seems normal, revealing his bare hands underneath, but the blue suit over the feet shows up repeatedly.
And then the Superman cameo:
“Just my luck, someone’s using the phonebooth.”
“Say, where have I seen that guy before?”
-
There’s some amount of fucking bedwetting going on these days from adults over family tv shows and movies (the Mandalorian backlash over the eggs is just fucking ridiculous)
I wasn’t assuming or suggesting that kids would be traumatised by the film dealing with death and existence; more that they’d be bored.
(I forgot to mention that I hated the cat design.)
I can’t speak for anyone else’s kids but my two lapped it up.
-
-
-
Weirdest of all, the red bits of Spidey’s costume are treated as separate from the blue bits; so he’s essentially wearing red socks as part of his costume.
This was traditionally the case in the comics too, though. Same with the gloves.
No, sorry, I should have been clearer. It’s different to that. The red socks (and gloves) go over a solid blue bodysuit that’s essentially a onesie. Yet the mask is treated like a hoodie, rather than a separate piece.
That sounds a bit odd. Does he still have the red bits on the main body?
I think we need images here!
I’ll try and screencap off Disney+ when next I’m on my desktop.
Yeah ok, that’s weird.
-
His gloves seems normal, revealing his bare hands underneath, but the blue suit over the feet shows up repeatedly.
I hate it when Spider-Man walks on walls with too much stuff on his feet. He has spider-powers, not magical powers. He can’t just walk on walls, his skin sticks to it. I forgive one layer of fabric for plausibleness and plot reasons but two is stretching it…
During the clone saga (more specifically the Onslaught aftermath), when I got really into Marvel, Mike Wieringo drew Spider-Man painting his ceiling by having climbed onto it with shoes on. I don’t know if it was his fault or the writers fault (don’t remember who wrote that issue) but it’s definitely unforgivable.
Someone actually tried to explain the whole sticking-to-walls-through-material thing once with some convoluted nonsense about him not actually sticking to things because of anything on his skin but because his powers create some kind of invisible field that disrupts molecules and binds them or something like that.
I prefer “he’s Spider-Man, he can stick to walls” as an explanation.
2 users thanked author for this post.
-
-
Yeah, the first Raimi one wasn’t it? I thought that was a little odd at the time but again I guess it’s just shorthand for his powers. We shouldn’t think about it too hard.
1 user thanked author for this post.
-
We shouldn’t think about it too hard.
3 users thanked author for this post.
-
We shouldn’t think about it too hard.
Is that guy watching Wonder Woman 1984?
-
-
I watched the first two episodes of The Watch.
For something based on the works of Terry Pratchett, the creators really don’t understand him. There’s some gender swapping and the characters really don’t ring true.
The biggest change is the setting. It’s set in what I can only describe as Game of Thrones meets Blade Runner. It looks like a post-apocalyptic cyberpunk cityscape but with magic. Some things look fantasy but a lot more feels sci-fi.
They also fucked up the Librarian.
It’s like the creators read Wikipedia entries but not the actual novels.
-
-
Oh also, Amercian Gods season 3 just started in case anyone still cares… I didn’t even know it got renewed, but I’m glad… I did enjoy it quite a bit despite its flaws.
1 user thanked author for this post.
-
-
I gave up on live action Pratchett a while ago. It simply doesn’t work.
3 users thanked author for this post.
-
I gave up on live action Pratchett a while ago. It simply doesn’t work.
Yeah, I thought Hogfather and Going Postal showed that even if you’re being as faithful as you possibly can, the result just isn’t great.
(Then again, as well-meaning as those efforts were, maybe they just needed better directors.)
1 user thanked author for this post.
-
-
We discussed it not long back but the problem with Pratchett adaptations is the humour is in the richness of the prose, not the situations or easily adapted quips which TV humour excels at.
He’s sold a ridiculous number of books so they will keep trying to adapt them and they will sometimes hit the very heights of being ‘not bad -not as good as the book’ whatever talent they throw at it.
2 users thanked author for this post.
-
I gave up on live action Pratchett a while ago. It simply doesn’t work.
Good Omens is an exception. Although, since it was a joint effort between Gaiman and Pratchett, and has retained Gaiman as the scriptwriter, that might be what makes it work.
1 user thanked author for this post.
-
Just watched the third episode of The Watch. It’s looks like it’s going to be a very loose of Guards! Guards!
It has a few decent moments but the weird setting really just throws everything off. This Ankh-Morpork has a dystopian cyberpunk future feel with Pratchett characters and elements.
One thing I loved is how not only the characters grew over the course of the novels but how Ankh-Morpork and the rest of Discworld evolved as well. A-M was fairly primitive but became so much more as the series went on. With this television show, it feels it’s set a century or more in the future. If you have read the novels, it really does ruin the vibe of the series.
1 user thanked author for this post.
-
Just watched Croupier, starring Clive Owen and directed by Mike Hodges, whose classic crime film Get Carter is one of my all-time favorites.
Owen plays an aspiring writer named Jack who takes a job as a croupier at a London casino to research his novel. At least that’s what he tells himself. His father is a gambler and a conman who casts a long shadow over Jack’s life. Becoming a croupier could just be Jack’s way of returning home.
He spent time as a croupier in South Africa where he grew up and from that experience and his father’s sordid life he’s come to view life as one big casino, with gamblers (or “punters”), bosses, and croupiers like him who stay above it all, observing, never falling victim to the grift. But this is a self-delusion too because he gambles quite a lot in his relationships with acquaintances and women. He even gets involved in a plan to rob the casino, calculating that his role is small enough for him to not get noticed.
You get the sense he’s always trying to get back at his father in some way, relishing the times he gets to catch cheaters at the casino, even beating one to a pulp in a confrontation after hours. He denies this strong emotion in himself so he doesn’t see how it shapes everything he does, pushing him to act out and take the same kinds of risks his father did.
Jack mines his experiences at the casino for his book and the film suggests a symmetry between his role as a writer and his role as an amoral croupier. In both roles he stays aloof, treating the loss and pain around him as just part of the job–something to be ignored as a croupier and mined for drama as a writer, but never anything to stir his sympathy.
This is a fascinating movie with a great script and central performance by Owen. A new favorite.
One thing: Jack and his publisher friend both use the word soccer instead of football. Does that ever happen in the UK? The movie doesn’t make any concessions to American audiences otherwise so it stands out as odd.
5 users thanked author for this post.
-
I remember seeing Croupier when it came out and not being that impressed, but your review is making me wonder if I was unduly harsh on it.
As for the soccer thing, no it’s not common to refer to it by that name, even if it’s not completely unheard of.
1 user thanked author for this post.
-
Just watched the third episode of The Watch. It’s looks like it’s going to be a very loose of Guards! Guards!
It has a few decent moments but the weird setting really just throws everything off. This Ankh-Morpork has a dystopian cyberpunk future feel with Pratchett characters and elements.
One thing I loved is how not only the characters grew over the course of the novels but how Ankh-Morpork and the rest of Discworld evolved as well. A-M was fairly primitive but became so much more as the series went on. With this television show, it feels it’s set a century or more in the future. If you have read the novels, it really does ruin the vibe of the series.
Heh, yeah, over time Ankh-Morpork got ingenious versions of computers and speed cameras.
1 user thanked author for this post.
-
We wouldn’t use the word soccer, generally speaking
Croupier does sound interesting though. Nice review.
1 user thanked author for this post.
-
Finally got around to starting on Cobra Kai last night. Was only planning on watching the first episode but wound up going through the first three. I’d have kept going too if it wasn’t after midnight by that point. Fun show!
1 user thanked author for this post.
-
Yeah, I’ll probably go back and finish season 2 at some point and go to season 3. It’s still got potential, and I’d like to see whether they’ve managed to get it back on track in season 3.
Yeah, honestly even though it’s not like the best thing ever, I just love those type of surrealist shows… it’s still very much in the same group of shows like Legion, Doom Patrol, Happy!, Preacher and also the Boys & the Umbrella Academy (to a lesser extent though).
1 user thanked author for this post.
-
His gloves seems normal, revealing his bare hands underneath, but the blue suit over the feet shows up repeatedly.
I hate it when Spider-Man walks on walls with too much stuff on his feet. He has spider-powers, not magical powers. He can’t just walk on walls, his skin sticks to it. I forgive one layer of fabric for plausibleness and plot reasons but two is stretching it…
During the clone saga (more specifically the Onslaught aftermath), when I got really into Marvel, Mike Wieringo drew Spider-Man painting his ceiling by having climbed onto it with shoes on. I don’t know if it was his fault or the writers fault (don’t remember who wrote that issue) but it’s definitely unforgivable.
Someone actually tried to explain the whole sticking-to-walls-through-material thing once with some convoluted nonsense about him not actually sticking to things because of anything on his skin but because his powers create some kind of invisible field that disrupts molecules and binds them or something like that.
I prefer “he’s Spider-Man, he can stick to walls” as an explanation.
In a early issue (around #50, I don’t remember the exact number but I’ve just read it in Omnibus #3) they specifically explain that he can wallcrawl with his costume on because the boots are very thin. So it works through thin cloth, not regular shoes. And if Stan wrote that, it must be true.
2 users thanked author for this post.
-
-
One thing: Jack and his publisher friend both use the word soccer instead of football. Does that ever happen in the UK? The movie doesn’t make any concessions to American audiences otherwise so it stands out as odd.
Depending on when the movie is set and the classes involved, it might.
If you read pre-war stories set in in boys’ boarding schools, for example, “football” always and only means Rugby Football, “soccer” is used if Association Football is ever mentioned (which would be rare, because who would play soccer rather than rugby? possibly the lower-class local town boys, but never the school boys).
-
-
I’m rewatching Next Goal Wins, the documentary about the American Samoa soccer team that Taika Waititi’s next movie is an adaptation of.
The documentary is very nice; I hope the scripted film is good. I’m glad Waititi managed to fit in another small movie before his big Marvel/Star Wars work. I do wonder about Elisabeth Moss’s role in the movie, I assume she’ll be playing Michael Fassbender’s wife or such, which seems a waste of her talents.
The doc’s on Sky Documentaries in the UK for people who have it.
1 user thanked author for this post.
-
One thing: Jack and his publisher friend both use the word soccer instead of football. Does that ever happen in the UK? The movie doesn’t make any concessions to American audiences otherwise so it stands out as odd.
Depending on when the movie is set and the classes involved, it might.
If you read pre-war stories set in in boys’ boarding schools, for example, “football” always and only means Rugby Football, “soccer” is used if Association Football is ever mentioned (which would be rare, because who would play soccer rather than rugby? possibly the lower-class local town boys, but never the school boys).
It’s set in the late 90s so that doesn’t apply unfortunately. Since the context is that the publisher wants Clive Owen to write a marketable book involving soccer, I’m wondering if it might be a way of showing how the publisher always has the American market in mind and just naturally uses that term, even when talking with another Brit.
-
One thing: Jack and his publisher friend both use the word soccer instead of football. Does that ever happen in the UK?
This one is a bit more complex than many imagine. Up until around the late 1980s soccer was used very frequently in Britain. Football magazines, sticker albums, TV shows and even the Football Association’s own annual coaching manual used ‘soccer’ in the titles. Over the past 30 years it’s fallen more out of use to the degree in the 21st century it’s usually attacked as an ‘Americanism’ (which it isn’t). This has probably come with a greater knowledge of American Football, it had no presence at all on British media until Channel 4 did a highlights package in 1982 and broadcast just one live game a year – the Superbowl final. People take umbrage with the old football/handegg analogy and that Americans use ‘soccer’ pretty exclusively.
I’d suspect by 1997 when Croupier was filmed it probably was inserted as a sop to an American viewership though. If it was an 80s film I’d be more inclined to think it could have been natural dialogue.
These examples are all 70s and 80s British publications that use soccer.
5 users thanked author for this post.
-
-
This one is a bit more complex than many imagine. Up until around the late 1980s soccer was used very frequently in Britain. Football magazines, sticker albums, TV shows and even the Football Association’s own annual coaching manual used ‘soccer’ in the titles. Over the past 30 years it’s fallen more out of use
And even then you do still see it used. There’s a long-running Saturday-morning football show on Sky called Soccer AM for example.
But it’s rare that you hear it in conversation in the way it is in Croupier.
1 user thanked author for this post.
-
Thanks for that Gar, I had no idea about the usage of “soccer” pre-90s.
Honestly a lot of British people don’t. Either they are too young or have forgotten.
I looked into it because a while back I was convinced when I was of schools age I saw it used a lot and a bit of research had all those old books and magazines and clips of TV presenters turn up using ‘soccer’. Then a variety of articles saying the same thing that towards the end of the 1980s (and I left school in 1989) the usage died away.
And the term, Szymanski says, was widely recognized in England through the first half of the twentieth century, according to data he crunched from books and newspapers. It became even more prevalent after the World War II — driven, he suggests, by the number of American soldiers in the country and the infatuation with American culture that came after the war.
But by the 1980s, Brits started to turn against the word. “The penetration of the game into American culture,” Szymanski writes, “has led to backlash against the use of the word in Britain, where it was once considered an innocuous alternative to the word ‘football.’”
-
I’ve started rewatching The OC. I own it all on DVD, but I haven’t seen it since it was first on (and there’s a bunch of these very early episodes I’ve never seen before).
Halfway through the first season now (the first Chrismukkah episode, with Rachel Bilson in Wonder Woman cosplay), and fully into it.
Alan Dale has showed up in his original “stern businessman/over-protective-yet-loving father” role, which he’s been repeating for the last 15 years on at least half a dozen other shows. They’ve given Rachel Bilson more to do than the “mean girl” stereotype she was in the first few episodes, and they’ve made Luke less of a complete asshole, though they still have no idea what to do with him.
We’re in the middle of the Summer/Seth/Anna love triangle, and I always preferred Anna at the time, but find her more annoying this time around. Part of that is probably that I looked at Samaire Armstrong’s Twitter feed post-US election, and it was not pretty.
The weaknesses in Mischa Barton’s acting are clearer this time around, but she’s mostly in scenes with Ben McKenzie, who’s good enough to make up for it.
1 user thanked author for this post.
-
There’s a new season of Hudson & Rex
Good dog, Rex
-
There’s a new season of Hudson & Rex
Good dog, Rex
Is that a bastardization of Kommissar Rex?
1 user thanked author for this post.
-
Letterboxd sent me a “year in review” email last night for 2020. I don’t know if it’s taken then over 10 days because I only signed up around this time last year or it took them that long to crunch the stats from the 72 films I watched last year (I’m surprised it’s even that many really). Anyway, it says my most watched actor of 2020 is… Rance Howard!
Yeah, me neither.
Anyway, it turns out, despite me not noticing him at all, he was in four films I watched last year, all within Jan and Feb. Oh and he’s Ron Howard’s dad. Again -
Is that a bastardization of Kommissar Rex?
Yes, it actually says “based on” and gives the creators’ names in the opening credits.
I’m sure Rex is a good dog in both versions
-
Is that a bastardization of Kommissar Rex?
Yes, it actually says “based on” and gives the creators’ names in the opening credits.
I’m sure Rex is a good dog in both versions
Pfft. Gut? Kommissar Rex ist überlegen.
I’m watching Batman: Soul of the dragon. I like it, but the animation is somewhat lacking. Sometimes there’s like 2 frames per second. Is this a covid thing or are they on a slashed budget. Animation-wise, it’s a far cry from Under The Red Hood and the other DC animation from that time (ten years ago!?). But, as I said, I still liked it.
Oh, and as soon as I saw Mark Dacascos name in the credits I rushed over to the bay and set me up with Crying Freeman for tonight or tomorrow night. I love that film and it’s been far, far too long since I saw it.
1 user thanked author for this post.
-
-
-
I’m watching Cats, the filmed version of the stage production from 1998. It’s amazing. Just fucking brilliant.
You DO realize, I hope, that the film version of CATS is directly related to the COVID pandemic, right? Just check the timelines.
That’s a completely different CATS-movie that I won’t ever watch…
…again.
1 user thanked author for this post.
-
I finished off Spider-Man ‘81 tonight. It continues to make odd choices through it’s run.
For instance, Peter’s love interest is Betty Brant, which is a retro choice (and one I’m all for – I like Betty). Makes sense though, as she’s located at the Bugle, which we see Peter at more than college. There’s no trace of Mary Jane or Gwen Stacy (nor Peter’s other friends beyond one episode having him mistaken for an unseen Harry Osborn. He calls Robbie his best friend). The Black Cat appears but there’s not really any of the sexual tension you’d usually get between her and Spider-Man. And yet the final episode has Spidey getting off with Medusa of all people.
Another episode has Namor appearing, angry about water pollution affecting Namorita (who is left in the care of Don Blake) and taking on Kingpin and Silvermane (voiced by Paul “Tigger” Winchell, amusingly). It’s a weird mash-up of elements that never quite gel together.
Oh and then there’s the Green Goblin episode, which not only treats him as an existing foe of Spider-Man but calls back to specific stories as though they were previous episodes the viewer might be familiar with. And also has Norman just out of jail for his crimes as the Goblin yet somehow completely unaware that he was/is the Goblin, thanks to a convenient head injury (until another brings his memory back and a third takes it away).
Think I might dip into Amazing Friends (which, also oddly, ran concurrently with this series) and the preceding Spider-Woman next.
1 user thanked author for this post.
-
-
Half of it is the kind of silliness kids would love, the other half is catchy songs and impressive dancing and it’s still somehow 100% sex.
My kid always loved this one and rewatched it a lot. (It was his mother who introduced it to him, not me!)
Don’t worry, you can be the one to introduce it to your latest addition.
1 user thanked author for this post.
-
Think I might dip into Amazing Friends (which, also oddly, ran concurrently with this series) and the preceding Spider-Woman next.
I remember on British TV they showed Amazing Friends and Spider-Woman but I don’t recall the Spider-Man solo show. They even renamed the weekly Spider-Man comic to Amazing Friends when the cartoon was on BBC.
-
-
Not sure that it was but they eventually put it out on DVD, with the why-the-heck-not title of Spider-Man 5000.
1 user thanked author for this post.
-
I remember on British TV they showed Amazing Friends and Spider-Woman but I don’t recall the Spider-Man solo show.
Ditto. I wonder if it ever made it to the UK.
I think my favourite is still the 90s Spider-Man show. It got a lot right.
IMDb gives it a UK air date of 1985 and checking BBC Genome, about four episodes were on CBBC, mixed in with Amazing Friends. But I remember seeing it in 1995 on Sky Movies Gold’s “Schools Out For Summer” block (alongside Amazing Friends and other old cartoons like MASK, Transformers and that weird Dick Tracy one that didn’t have Dick Tracy in it).
I also remember Spider-Woman being on the Children’s Channel in the early days of Sky and thinking it was a bit shit. I watched one on Disney+ last night and, yeah, it’s pretty shit. It’s not as weird as Spider-Man 81, just puzzling why they made some of the choices they did. Jessica Drew is editor/sole reporter of a magazine (Justice Magazine!
) which has a globe-trotting helicopter and a videophone connection to the head of US army intelligence apparently. They’ve clearly cribbed the journalist bit from Spider-Man without understanding why being a news photog worked for him – it gives him an excuse to be at/go to newsworthy events, but also to not be around people. But Jessica’s lumbered with a mild chauvinist photographer and a precocious pre-teen nephew everywhere she goes, meaning she has to come up with even more contrived ways of switching identity – throwing herself out of the helicopter for no reason in the episode I watched. Oh and she changes costume by spinning around like Wonder Woman, because I guess her undressed to her costumer like Spider-Man would have been considered too risque? And prevented her from wearing skin-revealing civilian clothes.Even that aside, the story-telling is moronic. The planet is invaded by aliens in Egyptian pyramid spaceships that can turn people into mummies. Spider-Woman works out that the way to defeat them is to… make large web panels that turn the pyramids into cubes (sort of but not really) which nullifies their power? Somehow?
I was going to say it all feels very Hanna-Barbera, but that’s not fair to Hanna-Barbera’s action cartoons, which could be pretty solid. I guess it feels more Ruby-Spears. Marvel Productions came a long way from here to actually good stuff in the 80s.
1 user thanked author for this post.
-
-
I watched Spider-Woman when it first aired. Growing up when superheroes were a rarity, I watched it and enjoyed it at the time. I was also 12 at the time.
Last year I watched an episode or two and yeah, if was godawful. To be fair though, it was a Saturday morning cartoon aimed at kids. At that time, it was never going to be any more than that.
At least it was better than the Thing’s Saturday morning series.
“THING RINGS, DO YOUR THING!!!”
2 users thanked author for this post.
-
In truth most of the cartoons of that era were pretty crap. It’s nostalgia mainly fuelling how people think fondly of them.
2 users thanked author for this post.
-
All of them except for Captain Future!!!
1 user thanked author for this post.
-
I’ve started rewatching The OC. I own it all on DVD, but I haven’t seen it since it was first on (and there’s a bunch of these very early episodes I’ve never seen before).
Halfway through the first season now (the first Chrismukkah episode, with Rachel Bilson in Wonder Woman cosplay), and fully into it.
Alan Dale has showed up in his original “stern businessman/over-protective-yet-loving father” role, which he’s been repeating for the last 15 years on at least half a dozen other shows. They’ve given Rachel Bilson more to do than the “mean girl” stereotype she was in the first few episodes, and they’ve made Luke less of a complete asshole, though they still have no idea what to do with him.
We’re in the middle of the Summer/Seth/Anna love triangle, and I always preferred Anna at the time, but find her more annoying this time around. Part of that is probably that I looked at Samaire Armstrong’s Twitter feed post-US election, and it was not pretty.
The weaknesses in Mischa Barton’s acting are clearer this time around, but she’s mostly in scenes with Ben McKenzie, who’s good enough to make up for it.
Now on to the start of The OC S2, where they brought in a whole bunch of new characters to act as love rivals, including a young Olivia Wilde. I remember even at the time being confused by how she got a job managing a nightclub at the age of seventeen.
The nightclub is mostly just an excuse for them to have a load of early-00s indie bands as guest stars, and I’ve no memory of how any of those acts hold up. (EDIT: Ooh, The Killers! Good get for 2004!)
They definitely seem to be leaning more into the comedy this season. In the first season Seth and Sandy got witty one-liners, now most of the rest of the cast do too.
1 user thanked author for this post.
-
The Strangers from 2008 is a really good horror movie. I avoided it for a long time because the trailers really scared me as a teenager but I rarely ever watched horror movies back then. Now that I’ve seen it I can say it’s certainly scary but not unbearably so.
It’s a very elemental horror movie. The narrative is bare bones, any mythology or commentary or even basic motive has been stripped away. It’s just two people stuck in a remote country house as three masked sadists terrorize them. I guess you could argue it makes a statement about the frailty of human relationships and the home but then again, most horror movies are about that. The Strangers is about something more immediate and visceral and it’s right in the title: the fear of people you don’t know.
This is one of those horror films where the protagonists make ridiculous decisions (at least the most egregious one happens immediately after a trauma that would shock anyone out of their senses) but if you can get past that there’s a lot to like here. Beyond its simple genre thrills it’s very well shot and directed and features ingenious usage of shadow.
1 user thanked author for this post.
-
-
-
I took a chance last night and watched Taika Waititi’s 2016 movie HUNT FOR THE WILDERPEOPLE, filmed in the New Zealand bush and starring veteran Sam Neill and newcomer Julian Dennison (who went on to play Firefist in DEADPOOL 2) along with Rachel House (who played the Grandmaster’s enforcer in THOR: RAGNAROK).
I never took note of Waititi until RAGNAROK, which I loved for the balance of humor, action and pathos that he deftly handled in that film. His award-winning JOJO RABBIT took that balance even further, taking one of the most tragic moments in human history and finding humor and beauty in the midst of that without being tasteless or condescending, by telling the story from the POV of a young boy trying to find his way in this bizarre world.
WILDERPEOPLE felt very similar to JOJO, and has moments of great humor and drama and tragedy, and Waititi and his cast handle all those emotions with equal success. On the surface it’s a simple story about a troubled orphan and the gruff old man who fosters him, but it is so much more than that. There is a young Maori (I assume) actress, Tioreore Ngatai-Melbourne, performing here in her first film role. It’s a small part, but so natural and confident that I’m surprised she hasn’t been tapped for more than a handful of roles since then.
It’s currently on Netflix; strongly recommended.
-
-
I watched the 10-episode Part 3 of Matt Groening’s Disenchantment.
It’s still just okay. While it does have some great worldbuiling, none of the characters really pop like the do on Simpsons or Futurama. It is far more serialized than Groening’s other shows.
After watching this and The Watch, I really wish TPTB had done an animated series based on Pratchett’s Discworld novels. I think a skilled show runner could have made a pretty good Discworld series.
You know there’s an animated version of Soul Music and Wyrd Sisters, right?
1 user thanked author for this post.
-
-
-
-
yeah this first episode was a rehash, but I didn’t mind since I actually needed the refresher course =P
also, seems Browning is also out?
-
I’ve started rewatching The OC. I own it all on DVD, but I haven’t seen it since it was first on (and there’s a bunch of these very early episodes I’ve never seen before).
Halfway through the first season now (the first Chrismukkah episode, with Rachel Bilson in Wonder Woman cosplay), and fully into it.
Alan Dale has showed up in his original “stern businessman/over-protective-yet-loving father” role, which he’s been repeating for the last 15 years on at least half a dozen other shows. They’ve given Rachel Bilson more to do than the “mean girl” stereotype she was in the first few episodes, and they’ve made Luke less of a complete asshole, though they still have no idea what to do with him.
We’re in the middle of the Summer/Seth/Anna love triangle, and I always preferred Anna at the time, but find her more annoying this time around. Part of that is probably that I looked at Samaire Armstrong’s Twitter feed post-US election, and it was not pretty.
The weaknesses in Mischa Barton’s acting are clearer this time around, but she’s mostly in scenes with Ben McKenzie, who’s good enough to make up for it.
Now on to the start of The OC S2, where they brought in a whole bunch of new characters to act as love rivals, including a young Olivia Wilde. I remember even at the time being confused by how she got a job managing a nightclub at the age of seventeen.
The nightclub is mostly just an excuse for them to have a load of early-00s indie bands as guest stars, and I’ve no memory of how any of those acts hold up. (EDIT: Ooh, The Killers! Good get for 2004!)
They definitely seem to be leaning more into the comedy this season. In the first season Seth and Sandy got witty one-liners, now most of the rest of the cast do too.
After enjoying the first half of S2 more than I remembered, I’m up to some of the stuff that annoyed me about the middle seasons, mostly the awful comic book story, where Seth and Zach are able to get a meeting to sell a series to Wildstorm based only on a handful of sketches that Seth has done (despite him being an artist never coming up in the first 1.5 seasons of the show).
There’s also another dumb “Sandy and Kirsten’s marriage is in trouble” storyline, which are always terrible as nobody ever buys that they’ll actually break up.
Despite Mischa Barton’s acting, the high point of the show for me at this time is probably the Marissa/Alex storyline with her and Olivia Wilde.
1 user thanked author for this post.
-
Rewatching Interstellar again, and I just want to point out that the speech about love being a quantifiable constant among this otherwise pretty impressive movie pisses me off so much I wish I was on that ship just so I could chuck Dr Brant out the airlock.
4 users thanked author for this post.
-
I dipped into a couple of other old Marvel cartoons on Disney+.
I watched the 90s X-Men cartoon while I had breakfast, which I don’t think I’ve done since about 1996 (RIP The DJ Kat Show and its less well remembered successor Boiled Eggs and Soldiers or something). The pilot holds up pretty well. I’ve definitely seen worse animation from the 90s and it hits all the beats to sell the set-up and characters well. It is odd that it went with Rogue having Ms Marvel’s powers. I never really thought about it as a kid, but that’s a lot of baggage for the character and the show glosses over it; Rogue has a moment to reflect on the awful manifestation of her powers, draining the power/life from a boy she kissed, while she’s casually ripping up and throwing a tree about. Anyway, the other impressive thing is the voice acting. Even now – however many other adaptations later – most of those voices still feel definitive to the characters. I think it helps that they’re not VAs who were familiar to the cartoon market (I think they were mostly all from anime dub backgrounds) so you don’t listen to it and think “boy Galvatron sure sounds a lot like a pissed off Fred from Scooby Doo”.
I also watched the first episode of Spider-Man and his Amazing Friends, for comparison to the solo series. And, well, if it was odd enough that these two shows were in production simultaneously, Marvel Productions seem to have gone out of their way to mess with their audiences’ heads.
The first episode has the Green Goblin in it. Norman Osborn has been released from a period in a sanatorium, when he gets into a vehicle crash and suffers a head injury, turning him into the Green Goblin again. He breaks into the Osborn Science Building of ESU, just as Peter Parker happens to be there for a costume party, at which – for no reason of any plot significance – there are several people dressed as the Green Goblin. Peter slinks off to investigate the break-in at the science building, where he finds the Goblin, who uses a freeze ray to disable him and then projects some images using a head-mounted device before fleeing.
All of which also happened in the solo series’s Green Goblin episode. It’s not even really a case of recycling, because the two episodes would have been produced at the same time and aired within weeks of each other. (There’s an episode of Amazing Friends that I’ve not checked yet that I know reuses a “guy turns into a humanoid spider” design, if not plot, from the solo series too).
There are differences – Amazing Friends has the Goblin as a Jekyl/Hyde physical transformation, whereas the solo series sticks with it being a costume (though both are oddly keen to make Norman not complicit for the Goblin’s actions). The two shows have almost entirely different voice casts too and it feels like Amazing Friends has made some concessions to network interference with the addition of Ms Lion the dog (arguably Firestar too, created once they realised the Human Torch couldn’t be used). But they share a lot of elements – the same sound effects, scene transition stings, the logos are mostly the same – enough that if you were channel surfing and happened upon it, you wouldn’t necessarily know that one wasn’t the other. I can definitely see this having caused a lot of confused recollections and playground arguments from kids who didn’t see one or other of the shows back in the day.
EDIT: oh, forgot to say, it was nice to get to see the end credits of X-Men for once. I’d completely forgotten that it does a sort of computer database of character profiles thing, with 3d models of each character. I always used to try and read that stuff when it aired back in the day, but the channel would shrink the end credits of cartoons to give the presenters more screen time.
-
This reply was modified 3 years, 10 months ago by
.
-
This reply was modified 3 years, 10 months ago by .
2 users thanked author for this post.
-
This reply was modified 3 years, 10 months ago by
-
-
Amazing Friends has the Goblin as a Jekyl/Hyde physical transformation
I wonder if this influenced Bendis with the Ultimate version at all. Most versions of the character have it as a costume but the Ultimate version went with a Hulk-style physical transformation, and I always wondered where that idea came from.
1 user thanked author for this post.
-
-
Transformers: War for Cybertron – Earthrise
Much like Siege, this was not good. Much like Cybertron, this series lacks energy. It gets way too talky at times the action is poorly choreographed. The soundtrack doesn’t help matters being low and ponderous.
Major spoiler: These six episodes are called Earthrise yet we don’t actually see Earth until the sixth episode. And what we see isn’t much.
And once again, not nearly enough transforming.
1 user thanked author for this post.
-
-
Major spoiler: These six episodes are called Earthrise yet we don’t actually see Earth until the sixth episode. And what we see isn’t much.
This was a whole thing, even though the toys had Earth-designed alternate modes, the official story of the Earthrise toyline was they they were approaching Earth and not actually on the planet, or something.
1 user thanked author for this post.
-
Major spoiler: These six episodes are called Earthrise yet we don’t actually see Earth until the sixth episode. And what we see isn’t much.
This was a whole thing, even though the toys had Earth-designed alternate modes, the official story of the Earthrise toyline was they they were approaching Earth and not actually on the planet, or something.
Yeah, that was confusing. Seeing the toys, I expected them to be Earth in the present with the new series. I kept waiting and waiting but it never happened.
-
Currently binging the 1988 Robocop animated series.
2 users thanked author for this post.
-
-
-
Major spoiler: These six episodes are called Earthrise yet we don’t actually see Earth until the sixth episode. And what we see isn’t much.
This was a whole thing, even though the toys had Earth-designed alternate modes, the official story of the Earthrise toyline was they they were approaching Earth and not actually on the planet, or something.
Yeah, that was confusing. Seeing the toys, I expected them to be Earth in the present with the new series. I kept waiting and waiting but it never happened.
As soon as the third part was announced to be Beast Wars I figured that was out the window. And to be fair, Dinobot looked cool in that last shot.
I shudder to think how he and Megatron are going to sound in the Kingdom cartoon though…
1 user thanked author for this post.
-
Major spoiler: These six episodes are called Earthrise yet we don’t actually see Earth until the sixth episode. And what we see isn’t much.
This was a whole thing, even though the toys had Earth-designed alternate modes, the official story of the Earthrise toyline was they they were approaching Earth and not actually on the planet, or something.
Yeah, that was confusing. Seeing the toys, I expected them to be Earth in the present with the new series. I kept waiting and waiting but it never happened.
As soon as the third part was announced to be Beast Wars I figured that was out the window. And to be fair, Dinobot looked cool in that last shot.
I shudder to think how he and Megatron are going to sound in the Kingdom cartoon though…
Like a really bad am-dram Shakespeare and a bad Sean Connery impression, yesssss.
1 user thanked author for this post.
-
Given the voice acting in Siege and Earthrise, you’ll never be quite sure if Megatron is saying yessssssssssssss like in Beast Wars, or if it’s another example of long. drawn out. dialogue.
1 user thanked author for this post.
-
-
There are a few interpretations given but none are definite. The show’s more about adjusting to life after an unexplainable tragedy so I didn’t mind that it was left mysterious.
1 user thanked author for this post.
-
Currently binging the 1988 Robocop animated series.
Woo, I haven’t seen that since the early nineties! Is the animation holding up?
It was done by AKOM, so not really.
1 user thanked author for this post.
![Football vs. Handegg. Learn the difference. [pic] : pics](https://external-preview.redd.it/B9HULHr29k-Y-Gv4WYC2OUUDQKmVEdORR7_XkWjXofs.jpg?auto=webp&s=4cd9fd7cc302d0f77bd91f5c8b6c84a56bf032ae)
