Discuss your current viewing here.
What Are You Watching?
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Sooo Billions season 6 just began (out of the blue for me) aaaaand no Axe of course, but I can pleasantly report that I really didn’t miss him, so I’m still in
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Nightmare Alley.
Guillermo del Toro directing a film set in the 40’s about mesmerism and has Kate Blanchett giving some quality femme fatale, what’s not to love?
Unfortunately the script.It’s beautiful directed and acted but you feel every second of it’s 2:30 runtime. It’s just really boring and every twist is so ham-fistedly telegraphed it makes watching it even more painful. It’s not foreshadowing if you wave your arms and point at what you think you’re being sneaky about.
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I don’t think it’s that weird. Brooklyn 99 ended for similar reasons.
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No, I mean it’s weird because there was an arc for his character about racist cops and all that stuff which seems like it was adressing his issues and whatnot, but yeah…
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The BBC’s Green Planet documentary series has been stunning so far.
It’s easy to take these Attenborough-fronted series for granted now as there have been so many great ones, but the way it brings the world of plants to life is just as impressive as the animal-oriented shows, and the photography has been as amazing as ever.
Really incredible stuff.
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The BBC’s Green Planet documentary series has been stunning so far.
It’s easy to take these Attenborough-fronted series for granted now as there have been so many great ones, but the way it brings the world of plants to life is just as impressive as the animal-oriented shows, and the photography has been as amazing as ever.
Really incredible stuff.
I do agree with all of this but I’m not liking the sound design. I mean, the music is absolutely fine and the sounds are evoking some interesting sounds (trees growing and stuff) but it feels so fake to me. It is fake. As compared to the photography, which is as you say absolutely stunning.
The other shows didn’t have quite this problem, since animals make sounds of themselves, and the sounds of the forest or desert that were incorporated in the episodes had a more naturally blended vibe to them because it wasn’t all filmed in a timelapse format.
But, that said… I am liking the rest of it. Good show, would recommend.
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I watched the rom-com The Big Sick, and I was pleasantly surprised. Got the tip from a trusted reviewer and as far as romcoms go, it was really fun and earnest. It probably helps that Kumail Nanjiani practically plays himself.
Enjoyed it. Wholesome and fun. Recommend it!
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I’m taking the advice of @todd and watching Rollerball this morning. If this movie isn’t good, we can’t be friends any more, Todd.
edit: I’m fifteen minutes in and I’ve already deviced a drinking game. Rules are simple: Every time someone says “Jonathan” – Take a drink.
Did I say drinking game? More like suicide.
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There are quite a few scenes where executives talk to him and say Jonathan in literally every sentence.
It’s probably my biggest complaint on it. It startes to grate after a while, and that may be intentional as to make it seem like everyone is belittling him all the time.
Good movie, btw. I’m not super impressed, but good entertainment.
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I enjoyed Willy Fogg as a kid. And not just because it had “willy” in the title.
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When I was a kid and into Looney Tunes I kept pronouncing it “Willy Coyote”.
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I watched the Super Crooks anime on Netflix.
It was just okay. It’s biggest fault was it was too damn long. The final 4 episodes of the total 13 were an adaptation of the comic series. Unfortunately, the first 9 episodes really added very little value to the series as a whole. There was one episode that was nothing but an extended chase scene. This should have been a 1.5 – 2 hour movie, not a series. Heist movies aren’t something that needs to be stretched out. Hell, the Rick and Morty episode “One Crew over the Crewcoo’s Morty” distilled down the heist movie concept (while poking fun at it) to a brilliant 22 minutes. Super Crooks simply got tedious after awhile.
I enjoyed the original comic book series. It was four issues with no fat.
I know they announced a live action version of the property, which may fall into the same problematic territory. Unless it’s a very short miniseries, it may run into the same problems.
It was an okay series but if you want to watch a heist film, there are a lot of better options including the Rick and Morty episode I mentioned.
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I used to watch Power back in the day when I had Starz for a while. It was about these big time NYC drug dealers. One of the big dealers is this white guy Tommy who is from a single parent family that lived in the black neighborhood. So, he grew up around black people and had all this street cred and respect. That character steals the show as a white guy who has a black demeanor. Now after that show finished, there were spinoff shows, and now “Tommy” has his own show where he moves to Chicago and now he is in the street scene there. I might check out that new show.
(The rapper Fifty Cents branched out from his rapping career and got into producing his shows and created the whole “Power” show and spinoffs.The guy is making money hand over fist with these show, his vitamin water sale and his headphone sale years ago.)I say all this about Tommy because in this hit HBO show Euphoria about high school teens, one of the teens that steals the show is (you guessed it) a white student with a black demeanor for the most part. He stands out as the antihero/bad boy type and the audience loves him.
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Watching some of the Secrets of Playboy documentary on the dark side of it all. It turns out (surprise) that it wasn’t this free sexual Shangri-La/dreamworld as the public was led to believe. A lot of testimonials on the 70’s, some accounts of cover ups of celebs allegedly raping Playmates in the Mansion at parties, and so on. In the later years, Hefner was even more of a dirty old man, the Mansion became dirtier and the cleaning/upkeep of such a huge place was never really sustained.
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Sofia Coppola has proven that she is a much better director behind the camera than an actor in front.
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I watched the first hour or so of The Predator (ie the latestest one). What a goddamn boring movie. I did not watch the second hour.
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Watched Power of the dog last night; went into it not knowing anything other than it’s sort of about cowboys and that Jane Campion directed it. My regular podcast pals enjoyed it and it’s got Oscar buzz, and wife is a big Campion fan, so let’s go.
It was really good (after the first five minutes which are awful). We’re still talking about it 24 hours later which is a sure sign of something better and bigger than the average film. I guess it’s a dissection of masculinity and stoicism and repression.
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Watched Power of the dog last night; went into it not knowing anything other than it’s sort of about cowboys and that Jane Campion directed it. My regular podcast pals enjoyed it and it’s got Oscar buzz, and wife is a big Campion fan, so let’s go.
It was really good (after the first five minutes which are awful). We’re still talking about it 24 hours later which is a sure sign of something better and bigger than the average film. I guess it’s a dissection of masculinity and stoicism and repression.
Yeah, I really enjoyed it too! I was wondering during the first halfish of the movie what it actually was about, and in a good way. It was interesting throughout, with extremely good performances all-around.
Like you, I went in blind and didn’t know what to expect. If you’re curious about this movie, don’t watch any trailers – Just see it!
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I’m watching the Norwegian movie Elling. It’s probably my ultimate feel-good movie.
Elling is 40+ years old and found hiding in a cupboard after his mother died. He never had any friends, and he lived with his mother all his life. All he wants is to be left alone, but he’s obviously not entirely capable of taking care of himself, so he gets sent to an institution for a short spin before being put in an apartment with his roommate from the institution. A very unlikely couple, Elling really just wants to be left alone and his roomie Kjell-Bjarne is going in to the world with open arms, wanting nothing more than to fuck. Something he’s never done.
It’s hilarious, superbly acted and with some unexpected turns when Elling starts to discover who he is and what he enjoys doing.
Might be hard to find if anyone wants to watch it but I could be of help if… well…
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It’s not doing anything revolutionary, but watching a giant man walking around beating the shit out of people while solving a mystery, is entertaining viewing.
I’ve been meaning to get into this, this review was the push I needed.
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Watched the Guy Ritchie 2021 film WRATH OF MAN last night. I’ve been waiting years for Ritchie to reclaim the glory he previously achieved with SNATCH and LOCK, STOCK…; this new film doesn’t do it, but it is a much stronger contender than his other recent films. It helps that Jason Statham is the lead, and supported by solid character actors like Eddie Marsan, Holt McCallany and Jeff Donovan. Worth watching when you have 2 hours on your hands.
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I finished the first season of Reacher on prime. It’s not doing anything revolutionary, but watching a giant man walking around beating the shit out of people while solving a mystery, is entertaining viewing.
This makes me want Dave Batista to be the next Doctor.
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I finished the first season of Reacher on prime. It’s not doing anything revolutionary, but watching a giant man walking around beating the shit out of people while solving a mystery, is entertaining viewing.
Yeah, watched that too… nothing ground breaking but super rock solid TV show. Helps that the actor, besides being enormous, is actually a pretty good actor… he was also Hawk in Titans, and that’s who should’ve been John Walker in the MCU, imo.
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Just as a matter of interest, is there any Motley Crue music in it? Because I found it weird that the trailer (on TV) uses Meatloaf :D
I don’t recall much/any of their music being used but I could be wrong.
What I do find bizarre is that so many of the soundtrack’s 90s songs used for nostalgia purposes in these early episodes are anachronistic. Only by a few years, but still. When the show is set in 95-96 and you have tracks from 98-99 being used it feels off.
A lot of people watching the show would have been around at the time and those tracks connect to a very specific era beyond just “the 90s”.
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That is absolutely one of my bugbears in period things. It begets things like The Goldbergs with its affected “1980-something” laziness.
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I watched Room (2015) yesterday.
I felt physically ill at times. It was absolutely horrifying to get into, and the movie translated that horror without ever diving into the violence or specifics of the situation. It’s not that kind of story. This is a story about a mother and her child. In a beyond fucked-up situation.
The boy, Jacob Tremblay, was an absolutely fantastic actor and Brie Larson was very convincing. When you have a kid that young (he’s playing a five year-old) acting this outstanding, I can’t help but think the director must be really, really good too.
Ultimately, this movie gives you relief from what it sets up. In a very softly handled way.
Easily the best movie I’ve seen all year so far.
Dearly recommended.
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Christel and I watched the Showtime 4-part docuseries We Need to Talk About Cosby.
W. Kamau Bell did an exceptional job with the series. He showed that Cosby has always been an apex-level sexual predator. He also showed how Cosby broke a lot of barriers for black people and did a lot of good. But you get the impression that all of his good deeds that shaped his image as “America’s Dad” was actually the grooming of America and the world to trust him so much that it made him bulletproof to any accusations that may come. They talk to the victims he drugged and raped. (He tended to rape women who were in their late teens/early 20s.) He also showed Cosby exerted his considerable power at the time to control his image.
Bell, while never defending him, showed that Cosby presents a complicated legacy, especially for black people.
This is not an easy series to watch but definitely worth your time.
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I finished watching Peacemaker.
It was a very enjoyable and fun series. It was far better than I expected and a lot of that goes to the surprising depth John Cena brought to the role. I am looking forward to the recently announced Season 2.
The surprise cameo at the end of the last episode was also a lot of fun.
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But you get the impression that all of his good deeds that shaped his image as “America’s Dad” was actually the grooming of America and the world to trust him so much that it made him bulletproof to any accusations that may come.
Very similar to Jimmy Savile in that regard. People who would only know of his crimes probably don’t realise that he was regarded close to sainthood when I was a kid, he raised over 50m pounds for charity, ran marathons, set up scholarships and spent large amounts of time volunteering (which we now know was direct cover for his abuse).
I think it has to be a large part of the context of how he got away with so much. People didn’t want to believe it.
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I finally got around to watching Another Round today. Great film. It’s funny in places, quite poignant and understatedly dramatic in others. And Mads Mikkelsen is great in it. Well worth a watch.
Yeah, and it has a pretty great ending too. I love that film.
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Been watching recent films on various cable and streaming services this weekend:
NIGHTMARE ALLEY (HBO Max) had some pretty good performances from a great cast, and Guillermo Del Toro has a deft hand with the Noir genre, but the film just felt too long. The original film version was 40 minutes shorter. I’m not sure why directors today cannot tighten up their storytelling techniques. Worth watching once.
OLD HENRY (Showtime) is a straightforward Western with a great secret that is revealed just before the climactic scene. Never heard of the director (Potsy Poncirilo), but he knows how to tell a good story in under 100 minutes. Nothing groundbreaking here, just a solid story clearly told and well-acted by a small cast highlighted by Tim Blake Nelson, Brad Dorff, and country singer Trace Adkins. Great effort by all involved.
THE TRAGEDY OF MACBETH (AppleTV+) is a faithful adaptation of the Shakespeare play filtered through the stylized direction of the Coen Brothers. Filmed in black-n-white, primarily on soundstages that make it feel like a play, this is the best of the three films we watched. Denzel Washington continues to amaze me with his talent and his ability to inhabit every role he takes on. Fantastic soundtrack and sound mixing as well to create or enhance the moods of various scenes. This is the one you NEED to watch.
Up next: CODA
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Power:Force
A spinoff with Tommy in Chicago. New Yorkers have quicker reflexes and think faster than Chicago residents so far 😂
Next: A binge watch on HBO Max of some 1st season episodes of Euphoria, one of the most talked about shows of late. It has Zendaya who is on a roll with some parts she is in.
Edit… So far, this sh*t is twisted! Forget about teen high school shows like 90210 and Riverdale.
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Clearing through some films on my DVR.
I Used To Go Here
Mumblecore indie about a mid-30s writer who has just published her first book, which isn’t doing well, but is invited back to her old uni to do a reading by her former lecturer that she almost had a thing with. Not terrible but unremarkable.
Paper Tigers
Indie martial arts comedy about the three late 40s former students of a kung fu master who are brought back together after decades apart to look into his death. Genuinely quite funny in places, charming the rest of the time with interesting characters and decent fights.2 users thanked author for this post.
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Paper Tigers Indie martial arts comedy about the three late 40s former students of a kung fu master who are brought back together after decades apart to look into his death. Genuinely quite funny in places, charming the rest of the time with interesting characters and decent fights.
Yeah, I enjoyed this one too. It’s very low key in its approach to the fights, not super flashy or violent.
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I’m really enjoying Reacher. Like what was said upthread, it’s not revolutionary in any sense but suspenseful enough to keep my interest high.
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I tried Cat Burglar. It’s fun and so faithful to those 40s cartoons if you just saw 2 minutes of it on TV you’d definitely just think it was some old cartoon you’d never seen. I got to the prize first time without dying but did fiddle around a little while on the replay to see different options but didn’t run it all the way through again yet.
I might play it with the kids next, probably the first family friendly thing Brooker has ever done.
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I liked the first season of Euphoria, but I’ve given up on the latest season. It’s basically just awful people being awful to each other at this point. And apart from the odd scene with Sydney Sweeney, it’s just not a fun watch.
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That Euphoria finale was intense…
I already knew the main players, but now I will catch up on the previous eps to get the whole thing.
This guy Fez and his little brother nicknamed Ashtray… Maybe they are more dangerous but from what I see so far.
Also, the setting is in high school and (like Cobra Kai) how long can the cast look like teens since they aren’t getting any younger? One of the actresses is 30 years old.
Carry on.
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We started Station 11 on the weekend and are up to episode 6. I had no idea what it was beyond post-pandemic, though my wife had read the book a while ago. It’s so far pretty good, with each episode a distinct thing in itself even though it’s all telling one story. I don’t like the main actress, but I’ll put up with her for the rest.
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We started Station 11 on the weekend
This was one of my great pleasures of 2021, and I’ve been recommending it to anyone who listens.
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Catching up with the new season of South Park. It’s back to a more episodic approach and it’s on form as of old. It’s doesn’t feel like a renassaince, just a back-to-the-usual. And I really like their usual shtick. For fans of the series, even if you feel it’s been lacking these past years, treat yourself with some old-school South Park goodness.
Bottled Water? Cortado? Wi-fi? Pilates!
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This past week, Christel and I finished the first season of the HBO series Somebody Somewhere.
This a funny and heartwarming series. It’s not hard or intense. It’s mellow and relaxing. It has a nice relaxing quality to it. It has great characters and is a lot of fun.
It you’d like a low-intensity but very funny show, I highly recommend it.
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Speaking of Nazis:
In the Holocaust museum, there was mention of how the Nazi party sent a group to the US to study the racial Jim Crow laws in the South and the Nazis actually returned and implemented some of the laws against the Jews in Germany.
I was surprised at this and then I went to Google:
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/11/what-america-taught-the-nazis/540630/
https://www.history.com/news/how-the-nazis-were-inspired-by-jim-crow
Put that in CRT….
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Ok… on a much lighter note.
A few eps more of season 2 and I will be done with Euphoria. (The show won’t come back until 2024)
Come to think of it, there was “American Pie” that movie in ’99 about the cool kids scene in high school. Where are they now? Shannon Elizabeth and the others? No guarantees things will last.
Even though it is a Zendaya vehicle (her character is the narrator), that hot blonde Sydney Sweeney is THE sensation and guaranteed to get movie deals from this. The guy who plays Fezco was actually discovered walking down the street. A casting agent gave him a card, he went there on a whim and… There is now a viral TikTok video of the guy as a waiter 4 years ago in Brooklyn.
It’s a crazy show of these “cool kids” in High school, but they are all sofa king f**ked up AND their parents to boot.
Things is, there is so much nudity (including male frontal like OZ) for a show on 17 yr olds? All those unsupervised kids in so many overcrowded parties and snorting at this huge home (don’t watch it if you can get triggered). Also, since no one is getting younger, how long can those 25 year olds continue to play 17 year olds? Zendaya is small enough to pull it off for now, but….I see it just to find out what the fuss is all about. I blame TikTok and Tr*mp for wanting to ban it.
Now on YouTube, there are these videos by sociologists and psychotherapists on the show and each character. These academics want to pique your interest, stay relevant and “hip” by these videos on pop culture and shows, sort of like these physicists and engineers posting videos on Star Trek technology, Superman’s powers and so on.
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It’s beautiful directed and acted but you feel every second of it’s 2:30 runtime. It’s just really boring and every twist is so ham-fistedly telegraphed it makes watching it even more painful. It’s not foreshadowing if you wave your arms and point at what you think you’re being sneaky about.
Yes, I also felt it lacked a spark of life. Also, it was kinda weird whenever anyone called Bradley Cooper “Kid,” but everyone seemed a little drained in this.
Interesting, I was talking to an old director and cameraman for some low budget movies (and occasionally porn) in the 80’s about this and another movie The Last Duel. He said that a lot of the scenes in the movies did not have or didn’t have enough key lighting so the actor’s faces weren’t very illuminated. This made them more elements in the shot rather than the focus of the shot and both films rely a lot on their actors.
He was surprised that The Last Duel was directed by Ridley Scott since it was so dark even in daytime scenes.
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I accidentally watched an episode of Star Trek last night. I’ve seen them all so many times, I don’t tend to seek them out any more, but when I watch one again after a long gap, I’m reminded again how good the series was.
It was The Immunity Syndrome, which isn’t often listed as a classic or a favourite, but it’s a superb piece of character drama as well as top-level science fiction. The script is tight and clever, it’s not afraid to give you funny moments, without diluting the seriousness of the drama. It makes you care about the fate of the characters — and I suspect it would even if you didn’t already know and love them. You can emphasise with Kirk’s dilemma, and the complex relationship between Spock and McCoy, and the dynamic between those three forms the core of the drama, and is more important to the viewers’ enjoyment than whatever the monster of the week is.
And more importantly, the monster of the week is clearly explained and the solution arrived at logically in a way you can understand without needing to know any previous Trek lore and without having to take techno-gobbledygook on faith. You can understand the problem and appreciate the solution with nothing more than a knowledge of high-school science — that’s how proper science fiction should work, and that’s where later Trek series mostly failed: “I’ll tech the tech through the tech thing and trigger some SFX… oh, we’ve won!” is not how you write science fiction, or even gripping drama.
The Immunity Syndrome is top-tier television on all levels, and it’s not even the best Trek episode by a long shot. Original Star Trek is still the best SF television ever made.
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Just watched Turning Red, the new Pixar movie on Disney+, with the kids.
Imagine a Hulk movie where he hulks out because he’s an adolescent girl and you’d not be far off.
It’s done nicely though and there were some occasional touches that put me in mind of Ghibli or anime stuff.
Also nice to see a movie like this that’s about mothers and daughters rather than fathers and sons.
And like all these high-end animated movies these days it looks beautiful.
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Just watched Turning Red, the new Pixar movie on Disney+, with the kids.
Imagine a Hulk movie where he hulks out because he’s an adolescent girl and you’d not be far off.
It’s done nicely though and there were some occasional touches that put me in mind of Ghibli or anime stuff.
Also nice to see a movie like this that’s about mothers and daughters rather than fathers and sons.
And like all these high-end animated movies these days it looks beautiful.
It was a toss-up last night between that and West Side Story (both new to Disney+) – we went with the latter. It was… good enough. well made, well acted, well sung and danced. I’m not a huge musicals guy anyway, but half of these songs are… not great.
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They re-released The Godfather Trilogy in cinemas for the 50th Anniversary, so I went to all three.
Always loved the original movie, and seeing it on the big screen made me appreciate it more than ever. Just fantastic all around, and never manages to feel too long, even at three hours.
I’ve never been part of the “Part II is better” camp, and seeing it again didn’t change my mind. The flashbacks are good, but never feel that essential to the overall story (though they do establish that Vito is in his 50s in the original, which makes the amount of prosthetics 47-year-old Brando had to wear feel very silly).
The modern day story feels much smaller than the first movie, there’s some great moments, but it feels like a weaker rethread of the original. The main thing it has going for it is John Cazale as Fredo, who’s barely in the first movie, and is fantastic here. The other returning characters, like Tom and Connie, feel underused though, and having to make up a new character and have everyone act like he was around for the first movie, because they couldn’t get Clemenza back, definitely hurts.
I’d only seen Part III once before, 15-20 years ago, and that was the original cut rather than the new version that was shown this time. It’s mostly very weird, dedicating a huge amount of screentime to a real-life conspiracy theory about the death of John Paul I. The romance plot is obviously awful, but Andy Garcia fits in well. Sofia Coppola feels like someone who memorised her lines, and doesn’t realise there’s more to acting than that. The whole thing where they constantly call each other “cuz” is just odd.
The mafia stuff is decent, even if it’s yet another rethread, with Michael up against mafioso from his father’s day who don’t like the way he does things yet again. Connie gets a lot to do in this one too, which mostly just feels like a default due to her being one of the only surviving characters. There’s a handful of good scenes, but it feels far longer than the other two movies despite being significantly shorter. The opera in the third act is so, so long. The only real moment that seems to have made any cultural impact is the “Just When I Thought I Was Out, They Pull Me Back In!” scene.
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