What're you watching?

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What movies and TV shows are you watching?

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[RonnieM]

Ad Astra – Holy fuck that’s 6 hours of my life I’ll never get back. Someone behind me fell asleep. I think they got the better deal. This felt like an incredibly high budget (especially the actors) student film that could have taken place in 20 minutes and been much more poignant.

• This reply was modified 5 years, 2 months ago by RonnieM.

It is getting a lot of positive response in the critical community, but that may be timing since Pitt was so good in ONCE UPON A TIME IN HOLLYWOOD. Kermode liked it, he says, but most of his review was to downplay expectations. I think “It’s not a masterpiece” was his takeaway. The “pitch” is 2001 meets APOCALYPSE NOW, but it’s really more like FLASH GORDON meets EVENT HORIZON.

I was going to see it this weekend, but I’m gonna wait a while.

So, having left Breaking Bad at s1.04, I returned to it a couple of weeks ago. Watched the rest of the first series and have got to the end of 2.06.
If you want to appreciate your life, watch this – 2.06 is particularly effective in this respect, as Jesse goes after a pair of crackheads but finds an utter shitpit of a house and a neglected kid, because ma and pa are too busy getting high. As to the others:
– Walt? Prideful, self-destructive fucking idiot would be putting it mildly.
– Kind of surprising that they added a vulnerabilty to super-macho cop bloke Hank, in the wake of him taking out Tuco.
– Skylar and Marie, oh do these two deserve each other.
It’s really not my kind of story, yet it has this fascination effect and a real skill in how it executes its story. Shouldn’t be too much longer before someone better call Saul.

Tag

Conceptually this is solid – a group of 40-somethings have been playing the same game of tag (for one month a year) for 30 years and are determined to finally get their one friend who hasn’t never been tagged in this, his final year before he “retires” and during his wedding. That should be a pretty good recipe for mad hijinks, crazy actions scenes and nonsense. And it is, to some degree. The problem comes in casting. Jeremy Renner is the untagged friend and he really does not have the charisma to make the character anything other than a spectacular asshole. Part of that is the character on the page, who is hyper-competitive and sets up elaborate schemes to avoid his friends, but I think it’s possible to do that without coming across as a total dick, which Renner does not manage at all.

The real star for me is Isla Fisher as one of the guys’ hyper-competitive wife, who is just the right level of manic. That balances out some of the film’s manufactured sentimentality and triteness. Overall it’s far from brilliant, but it just about hangs together well enough for an hour and a half or so, but could have been better if it had dared to be wilder and more anarchic. The film ends with a glimpse at the people the real article the film is based on was about, with some camera phone footage from their tagging. There’s actually 10 of them which would have been less focused for a film but makes way more sense for the logistics of the game compared to the five in the film.

[Christian]

I am now in season 3 of Dear White People.

This show has changed quite a bit. In season 2 it kinda lost its focus, and season 3 seems to have given up on having politics at the centre of the show and has instead become more of a campus soap thing. It’s still fun, but it’s weird how it’s shed all of what completely drove season 1.

It’s probably a good thing that season 4 will be the last one.

• This reply was modified 5 years, 2 months ago by Christian.

Sup y’all, guess my inaugural post is going to be this review of Joker

I’ll get right to the point. I almost loved this movie. I still really really like it. To get it out of the way, the movie is at its worst when it’s playing into the expectations that it’s set out for itself. This idea that it’s meant to be some sort of prestige drama. Some deep character study and exploration. When it’s really not. And I was shocked that it wasn’t. Going into this I was dreading it…because the idea that it was supposed to be some sort of artistic thematic construct sounded ungodly boring and overcooked for this character. It could have worked, I guess, but the marketing and trailers all made it seem flat and one-note. Like it would be going through the motions of what an elite drama should be.

But yeah, I was in for a surprise once the movie actually started and got underway…because it ended up being this honestly silly, goofy, and ridiculous movie. A movie that is at it’s core something slapstick, something almost vaudevillian, and revels in it. The direction, the visuals, the editing, Phoenix’s performance, all work to make each and every gag and punchline, where outright or implied, hit with startling regularity. That’s not to say there isn’t a serious edge to it. It doesn’t completely bypass the darker, more tragic, hefty, elements…but it doesn’t let it get in the way of being this kinda wacky farcical adventure either. It’s like the movie is the punchline itself to a joke set-up by the trailers. Promising one thing, and sucker-punching the audience with something completely different and unexpected. And I couldn’t have been happier. It ended up being this frantic, nigh-on screwball, madcap dark comedy and I nearly fell completely in love with it by the end.

If it weren’t for the few drawbacks…and like I said, it’s when the movie tries too hard to be something it’s not. When it tries too hard to force some artistic or poetic merits to itself. Scenes that slow things down to a snails pace or are unnecessary and honestly almost nonsensical diversions. They come off as more of what something thinks a depthy movie should have rather than having any meaning in and of themselves. It’s just kinda annoying and confounding.

But other than that…it’s a fun ride. Wild, exhilarating, shocking, and carried by assured direction, editing, and the most amazing and kinetic physicality the Joker has seen in a while. While the flaws keep me from wanting to see it again any time soon, I have no doubt I’ll get to it eventually. I just can’t imagine these past few days, reading reactions to this movie from others saying that it left them feeling hollow and empty…and, like, what kinda dramas are you seeing if this makes you lose faith in humanity?

Overall: 8/10

I’m watching the end of Millarworld ='(

Jon wrote:

I’m watching the end of Millarworld ='(

So……just to pick up from that conversation from MW….<Henning>…..Clive Barker was a terrible example to pick to make that point

He had a great career and he was a brilliant writer for whom many of his properties were adapted and for some one whose stories were not very mainstream at all he was very popular

Terminator Genesys

We need no introduction here, right? Everyone knows the score with the plot? OK? OK.

So, this felt like a Terminator TV show. It had some interesting twists and elements to play around with, but everything is cleaner and brighter, and none of the actors are as good, and everything’s just a bit bleh.

And yet, somehow this cost ten times as much as the original Terminator, and that’s taking inflation into account. And the low-buget as h*ck Terminator TV show felt more like a proper follow-up to the original movies, and played around with a lot of the same concepts!

There’s no danger here, no excitement. The ways the timeline get messed with are interesting, but there’s no meat behind them, the emotional core of the movie is Sarah’s relationship with the Terminator as a father figure, but like, T2 already did that, and way better. Jai Courtney is barely competent as Reese, but he’s Brick Hardcheese while Micheal Biehn was lean and athletic, and it’s like one of the worst recastings ever.

This carries over to the action scenes, which are mostly CG and bereft of excitement and soul. Once again there are some nice ideas and touches, especially the traps laid specifically to take out the T-1000 early in the movie, but they’re executed badly. This is another movie I would have walked out on had I gone to see it in the cinema, but it kept me on Netflix over two non-consecutive hours, I guess.

That’s a very fair review. There’s lots to like in Genisys – I think the ‘remix’ first act works pretty well in general – but there’s a lot that’s a bit crap as well (Reese’s recasting was definitely the worst element but to be honest I thought Sarah was pretty dreadful too).

I do wonder how differently the twist with John might have been received if it hadn’t been spoiled by the marketing, though.

And yes, there are lots of similarities between Genisys and the TV show, particularly the construction of the time machine to time-jump into the future, and the multiple timelines played with.

Ready or Not – Clare and I watched this movie about board games connected to a wedding after our wedding had board games at the reception. It plays on various tropes, subverts and manages elements of realism whilst mixing in bits of the fantastical. At times very tense, then subverting it so the audience veered between gasps and stifling loud laughing as if they were not sure they should laugh. Luckily not too gory, but not afraid to hide from what it is depicting. The second Adam Brody movie we saw in a week after rewatching Shazam.

I still do not understand how Jai Courtney keeps being cast in anything after Good day to Die Hard and Genysis.

I don’t understand how you can be Jai Courtney and still have been wasted in Suicide Squad.

Eating Raoul – Still funny as hell. Damn swingers!

I watched the original Suspiria last night. Visually and aurally, it’s a beautiful and well crafted movie. Unfortunately, the story is just not there. Susie, the protagonist, just reacts and wanders from scene to scene. It’s okay at best but it really just drags on.

Jai Courtney is fucking awful but I really enjoyed Genysis.

In fairness though I have a bit of a blind spot for universes that I really like, clearly it doesn’t come close to T2.

On the subject, I watched T2 this week for about the 20th time.

It just underlined for me how bad action movies are these days that I was still more invested and on the edge of my seat watching this, even though I knew everything that was going to happen, than I have been watching any blockbuster in recent years.

Cinema has definitely gone off the cliff, the superhero movies are junk in comparison and enjoying T2 again proved it’s not an age thing, it’s a quality thing. Obviously speaking subjectively here but passionately.

I’m looking forward to Dark Fate, I’ll be avoiding any further media pieces or chat about this movie until I’ve seen it though because SFX dropped a massive fucking spoiler in there latest issue. With no warning. You Absolute fucking dickhead Nick Setchfield.

That’s irritating. I’m really looking forward to Dark Fate too and I’m hoping to avoid spoilers, although reading between the lines it seems fairly likely that a certain thing has happened to lead to the events that are going to be central to this movie.

Other than that, though, I know relatively little beyond the basics.

Anyway, on a similar “films aren’t what they used to be” note, I rewatched Flight of The Navigator with the kids for the first time last night.

It’s interesting to watch it now as its age gives it both strengths and weaknesses. It’s very slow to get started by today’s standards of kid-oriented movies, and you have to give it a while to set up the story before the fun starts.

But once it does, it’s really good fun and works well for young viewers in a way that isn’t really true of most of these kinds of movies today. It feels like there’s a bit of a gap for sci-fi for young kids – of the kind that was so common in the ’80s – and that’s a shame. This plays perfectly to its audience and I can’t really think of movies like this today that are made specifically for that younger crowd.

A couple of other observations:

– Two examples of “shit” in a ‘U’ movie still surprises me, no matter how many times I’ve seen it.
– There’s an unintentionally hilarious ‘action sequence’ involving a small robot trolley driving from one building to another that’s scored as though it’s a high-octane highlight of the movie when actually it’s just a little chunky prop trundling along the ground. For what feels like about twenty minutes.
– Alan Silvestri’s score is really evocative for me, for nostalgic reasons; but objectively it sounds incredibly dated and simple compared to his BTTF a year earlier.
– I love this movie, and it’s not really justified as it’s a fairly middling kids sci-fi film that rides the coattails of E.T. – but I watched it so much as a kid (and for some reason related to an awkward, geeky young kid called David) that it will forever be special to me.

[Ben]

Preacher: Season 4
This was a hell of a crazy ride to one of the most insane series of recent years. So, the finale?
There was only one major screw-up in the finale – Starr lives. He should have died horribly. The rest of it worked quite well, especially the last 15 minutes. There was the sequence between God and the Saint in Heaven. Seeing that was very satisfying, even more so given how the adaptation rendered God. A macho, swaggering, rapist, domineering super-bastard psychopath. He had to go.
One of the biggest surprises and departures from the comic was the addition of Jesus, in the role of an unwanted and dismissed son. God would much prefer a drooling idiot, likely because he’d never get any criticism from it. For all that Preacher is highly critical of religion – and especially the Old Testament God, which is what God here is, it leaves a good amount of room for the compassion of the new, which you see Jesus demonstrating at the end in the DIY store. Also really liked that he killed Hitler.
Featherstone – there goes a stellar example of a prize idiot with legendary level plot armour.
One guy I felt quite sorry was pilot Steve.
Frankie Toscani. This guy, you know? Thinks he’s such a fucking hardarse? And look what happened after he fucked with the wrong person – brains blown via a bullet from a gun shoved up his arse. Moral of the story, kids – don’t fuck with vampires, no matter how much cash you’re offered.
Oh and it took me ages that the distant screaming in the bar near Masada was Genesis’ parents killing each other over and over for months.
The final scene was particularly effective – Cassidy deciding his time was up, at the graves of his friends from 40 years ago.
More than anything, the four series collectively demonstrate that you can have both a very faithful adaptation to the essence of a property while departing from the original material. Each of the series, but this last one particularly, went far farther than I would have ever expected – did anyone expect the Chunt brothers? Or De Sade and his gang of perverts? I didn’t.
It also had a unique sense of style. There are sequences with some brilliant shot execution and structure. Things that I haven’t seen before and probably won’t again. Plus, it mostly, very mostly, pulled it off at the end.

• This reply was modified 5 years, 2 months ago by Ben.

[Jon]

DP…

that’s double post you filthy degenerates… u_u

• This reply was modified 5 years, 2 months ago by Jon.
• This reply was modified 5 years, 2 months ago by Jon.

Edit: Uhm there’s something werid going on with the “edit” function… so this might show up as a double post, let me know…

Yes it was fantastic. I didn’t mind that survivor you had gripes with (too lazy for spoilers, I’m sure you’ll get it) because of how *** was played throughout the show… I didn’t really want that person to die, tbh.

The only real gripe I had was the very last thing with the “girl”, I would’ve prefered another actress to play the role, it looked to… I dunno, stupid, honestly. At least some prosthetics or something…

But other than that it’s interesting how the series kept escalating the ridiculousness, and the Ennis-ness of the story… first season probably seems VERY mild in comparaison despite still having some “shock” in it, but it makes for one hell of a ride. I think they touched on most major points and I’m quite happy with the pacing of it all, I think they managed to condense it well enough, skipping some of the more boring parts.

It truly is a great show, I wish people will give it another chance, specially with The Boys getting all that hype, but I suspect most people won’t know or care to find out the connection between both… =/

John Wick 2

So, I have to say I never got on the John Wick hype train.  30 years ago it would have been produced by Canon films and starred Chuck Norris or Michael Dudikoff.  But it was elevated to quality by the joint factors of it taking the ludicrous concept just straight enough, and it being an excuse for Keanu Reeves to hang out with much of the Matrix stunt crew again.  It’s like what Adam Sandler does with his movies, but involving talented people.
And I had a bit of trepidation that the sequel would just be more of the same – fun, but no real substance.  The opening sequence picking up where the prior film left off had me worried, as did the montage of him putting all his shit back in the hole in his floor.

But then… there’s almost an hour of just really good storytelling.  Everything from Santino coming to John’s house to him leaving the party is wonderful.  The frustration at having to do all this shit again, the slight unease, all leading up to the conversation between John and Gianna, and the content of that conversation?  Brilliant.  Elevated way above the content of the first movie.

But it’s also way better than the back half of the movie, which just kinda descends back into a montage of fighting up until the very end.  And don’t get me wrong, it’s really good action (though I wonder exactly how many high-powered assassins are there in New York), but just not as good as most of the prior hour of movie.  It’s like you went to Burger Monarch and somehow got filet mignon, but alongside the usual fries and ice cream sundae.
And the whole hall of mirrors thing at the end was way too on the nose with the symbolism.

Overall?  Good fun, and I’ll always go to bat for a movie that attempts to move beyond the limitations of its genre, especially when it succeeds.

I saw the stage version of ‘Ghost Stories’ tonight.

I never saw the original run so I don’t know if they’ve changed anything after it was made as a movie two years ago year?

To my mind there were definitely bits that felt like movie scenes which didn’t quite translate to live theatre (I felt the same about The Twilight Zone and The Exorcist, which I saw over the last couple of years), but overall it’s still a lot of fun, often quite creepy and very well performed by the cast.

Happy Halloween!

[SteveUK]

I found a review of the movie that includes some specifics for parents;
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WHAT PARENTS NEED TO KNOW
Parents need to know that Ghost Stories is an English horror anthology that’s probably weirder than it is scary, but it might appeal to the more adventurous horror fans among older teens. Language is the biggest issue, with several uses of “f–k,” “s–t,” and more. There are also plenty of jump scares and scenes of unsettling, scary stuff and there are scenes with fits of rage, death, and a car hitting something in the woods. Bullies pick on a developmentally disabled boy. Background/social drinking and smoking are shown from time to time, and bullies are shown smoking. Sex isn’t really an issue. Martin Freeman co-stars.

https://www.commonsensemedia.org/movie-reviews/ghost-stories
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If I was Freeman I’d consider suing!

• This reply was modified 5 years, 2 months ago by SteveUK.

Jon wrote:

It truly is a great show, I wish people will give it another chance, specially with The Boys getting all that hype, but I suspect most people won’t know or care to find out the connection between both… =/

I plan to get back to preacher eventually but I can’t motivate myself to watch it

I’ve watched up to the end of season 2, i think the last episode I watched was at some point last year

I don’t think the writing on the series is very strong at all.
If you are going to have so very little happening in a season then the writing needs to be stronger and more interesting.

Compare it to something like The Haunting of Hill House, where the pacing is glacier slow but the writing is so good that the slow pacing actually becomes a strong point.

I think there’s some stuff that Preacher did well from what I’ve seen, but it’s done all very knowingly and designed to shock, so even the good bits fall a bit flat. It’s all a bit nod nod wink wink and totally in love with its own jokes.

It’s not a patch on the comics, not even close.

I fell off Preacher fairly early – I didn’t dislike it outright but I felt like there wasn’t much to it once you got past the self-consciously outrageous elements.

I never watched Twin Peaks when it was on originally, I didn’t have television reception after 1990. When I heard they were filming a sequel series right down the road from us (had no idea the original was filmed here) I thought it would be fun to check out on Netflix and see familiar sites in a TV show. It was so bad my kid was asking me to turn it off halfway through the pilot. I insisted we plow through and even give the next episode a shot but aside from Cooper it was a soap opera Trainwreck of bad acting, bad dialogue and terrible pacing. The god awful music being poorly cued at odd moments didn’t help either. We gave up after two episodes and that was that… except it wasn’t!

I got sick as hell last week and have been in bed for most of 6 days (I went into work Monday but was sent home by my foreman) I was bored so I started watching it again. I made it to the middle of season 2 when the main plot line gets resolved but lost interest in all the loose ends that weren’t tied up by then. I think this show survives (and got a sequel) based on mostly nostalgia. In 1990 it was pretty edgy compared to most TV so I can see the attraction at the time but it doesn’t hold up very well any more.
Highlight: seeing David Duchovny in drag

Twin Peaks was another one that I tried but never got on with. I watched several episodes but I found it quite boring and too close to what it was parodying to be enjoyable.

The original couple of seasons of Twin Peaks have aged badly, it’s probably fairly impossible for those to attract new viewers.

However, the recent season is must watch tv. It’s absolutely mind blowing.

It’s honestly worthwhile making the effort to grind through the old episodes just to get enough background to get the most out of the third season.

I am pleased to say that I really enjoyed Knives Out. It’s a lot of fun to see a playful whodunnit with a subversive edge and a cast that appear to be having a ball. I really recommend seeing this with as little foreknowledge of possible. I’d only seen the first trailer and that seemed like plenty.

I’m looking forward to seeing it.

General release in the UK is the end of November though.

I hope that you find it’s worth the wait. I unknowingly went to a subtitled screening and that didn’t even damage the experience.

Uncut Gems was good. It doesn’t have the sustained intensity of Good Time and played more like a drama than a thriller to me, but there are definitely suspenseful sequences. Adam Sandler is really watchable and the score is great. It really isn’t for everyone, but if you’re interested then I say it’s worth a watch.

[RonnieM]

Sound & Fury – This is the concept anime from Netflix for Sturgill Simpson’s newest album. It’s part Pearl Jam’s Do the Evolution music video, part Daft Punk’s Interstella 5555, part Animatrix and part something else. It consists of a handful of vignettes/music videos that connect together to tell a larger story with a few interludes that don’t seem to have as much relevance. Below is one of the music videos/vignettes, likely the best one in the bunch. It was fun if a bit weird in spots. I really enjoyed the music.
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• This reply was modified 5 years, 2 months ago by RonnieM.

Le Mans ’66 worked really well for me, as someone who didn’t really know the story or any of the key players. Matt Damon and Christian Bale work well together (and separately), while most of the the racing scenes are top-knotch. Hell, some of the themes of the story work as an analogue for filmmaking. They probably stand out as more meta for me than anyone involved intended, purely because of the angle of Disney buying Fox.

Amyway, if this is the final blockbuster to come from Twentieth Century Fox proper, I hope that it’s a hit. It definitely seemed to please the crowd that I saw it with.

Is that already out? Really looking forward to it.

Not yet. It looks like it’s still five or six weeks away, but I’m at the London Film Festival this week and making the most of it. I haven’t posted about everything I’ve seen, but it’s a fun time here.

I’m excited to see what you make of this one anyway, given your interest in the subject matter.

El Camino is a solid continuation of the Breaking Bad finale.
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Jesse was never my favourite character, but it’s good to get some real closure for him here. And Aaron Paul give a great performance. It was a lot more flashback based than I thought it would be. But it really worked to flesh out how tortured Jesse was. And apart from maybe one scene, it never felt like it was being to fan servicy.

I saw Gemini Man in 60FPS 3D last night. Fourth movie I’ve seen in 3D, and first I’ve seen in HFR.

The story was a bit too basic and predictable, with no real surprises. I thought Smith was great, and liked Winstead and Wong, even if Wong seemed to be in a different movie. Clive Owen was a fairly uninspired villain; it’s the same character he’s played before and will probably play many times again.

The HFR is very weird, especially in the brightly lit outdoor scenes. It kept reminding me of those cheap-looking vanity movies that go straight to Amazon Prime or are sold by the directors by mail, while still looking expensive.

The depth of field stuff is very distracting. The characters will be in focus in the foreground, but my eyes kept drifting to the background, looking at random extras, or just the landscapes. There’s one part, set at fancy resort, where there’s a big dialogue scene happening, but I kept looking at the background where an old man in black swim trunks kept wandering in and out of frame.

I do think the HFR works great for the action scenes. I loved the Columbia setpiece, and the Smith-vs-Smith hand-to-hand fight in the catacombs. It definitely becomes less distracting in the third act too, probably as it’s mostly set at night. The few underwater bits look fantastic too, and makes me curious to see what James Cameron could do with the tech.

Overall, I enjoyed the HFR experience more than I expected. The movie’s not great, but I think it’s definitely worth watching.

Alita: Battle Angel
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So, let’s get it out of the way: this is easily the best Western remake of a manga/anime to date. And I mean that to damn with faint praise. Now it’s actually a good movie to boot, so bonus. But you know, not great.
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Well then, what worked? A lot of stuff, really. The cyborg designs were amazing, and really faithful to the Manga for the most part. Alita, Zapan, Ajakutty and Jashugan were just about perfect. Not sure why they renamed Makaku to Gruwiskha, but he still looked pretty great. The Martian combat troops were another almost direct port from the manga and looked great. The Motorball sequences were spectacular and caught the frenetic motion of books 3 and 4 very well – even though they changed the rules of the game a little… And the plot, grabbing bits and pieces from across a few different areas of the first three volumes of the comic (and some bits from the anime) with original connective tissue between them.
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On that note, it’s pretty clear that the creators had a bunch of bits they clearly wanted to include in the movie – The sewer fight, Alita crippling Zapan, Hugo’s fate, a Motorball game, Chiren’s final fate (she’s only in the anime, so it’s interesting to see how they integrated her into the elements they ported in from the manga that weren’t in there), and while a lot of that works, as a fan of the manga there are some problems here. Firstly, much of the conflict is removed from Alita and Ido’s relationship – while he’s initially reluctant to expose her to the dangers of the Scrapyard, he’s totally on-board for everything after she switches to the Berserker body, and they don’t seem to have their falling out after Hugo’s death – so if there’s a sequel will they even retain the toxic side of their relationship? Similarly Alita has a lot less empathy for her enemies, while Gruwishka gives a bit of the “I was born in a sewer” monologue from the manga, it’s not because of the messed-up connection Makaku felt to Alita in the manga. And Alita and Zapan have more of a level rivalry here, while in the manga it was entirely in Zapan’s head until he went after Hugo – Alita had no idea who he was until then. And having Desty Nova being a leader of Zarem, sitting above and manipulating everything? I guess it works to have a major antagonist for a potential sequel, but it’s basically some other character who looks like Nova (though Ed Norton’s cameo made him look the part, to be fair. They got the glasses down perfectly)
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Beyond that, the visuals are highly variable. For at least a half an hour, the CG on Alita’s face is distracting as all hell, and while I got used to it, there tended to be some element in a shot every 5-10 minutes that felt totally out of place and dragged me out of the movie’s immersion. When it works, it works really well. But there are too many points where it doesn’t for me to say it’s a success visually.
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Overall, I’d likely have preferred this movie if I hadn’t read the manga. Between the bits that jarred from my enjoyment of the source material, and the bits that jarred visually, there are too many flaws for me to say I loved it, but I did like it. Definitely more enjoyable than Ghost in the Shell.

I just watched El Camino too. I found it a bit mixed.

On one hand, it’s a decent curtain call for Jesse (and a few other characters from Breaking Bad – I won’t spoil it by mentioning who does and doesn’t show up here) and there are some good individual scenes with the kind of building of tension and clever twists that Gilligan always does so well.

But at the same time, there’s never a sense that this was a story that needed to be told. There isn’t a huge urgency about it, and the scenes that work well individually don’t come together as a particularly coherent whole. It’s almost as though these were individual scenes knocking around in Gilligan’s head for a while that he decided to string together as a two-hour movie.

Also, it’s a bit too unrelentingly bleak for me. Breaking Bad always had its moments, but it also had a certain levity and balance that is largely missing here.

I don’t regret watching it, but I also kind of wish they’d left the Breaking Bad finale as it was, rather than giving it what amounts to a slightly limp epilogue.

Breaking Bad really stuck the landing, maybe the best TV show start to finish that I’ve ever seen. It makes me hesitant to watch an epilogue. It’s a point of contention in our house at the moment!

I liked Breaking Bad a lot, and I thought the last couple of episodes were great – but I did feel like the final season was generally a bit of a step down from what came before it, and El Camino feels of a piece with that final season to me.

I liked El Camino but I think it works best to think of it as an extra long episode of Breaking Bad rather than a movie. I’m having trouble doing that myself though and feel a bit underwhelmed, even though I do like much of what the movie does.

It is more like that, yes.

A lot of the ideas and scenes here would have made for good single episodes – but strung together as a movie-length viewing experience it doesn’t quite hang together as a satisfying whole.

Just watched El Camino tonight; really enjoyed it. Pretty tightly written, no real lags or filler moments and only a few minor plot holes.

Aaron Paul puts in a super impressive performance, running the gamut of emotions throughout – a flashback (recently filmed) to the early Jesse Pinkman really emphasises how far the character came and how good a job Paul did.

The final film that I saw at the London Film Festival was the Friday night screening of First Love, directed by Takashi Miike. The story has a fairly large number of characters spread across the Yakuza, the Triads and some characters caught up in-between. It never becomes confusing though, as each character is distinct in classic Miike fashion.

True to its title, this is a love story. But it’s a pretty violent one and very funny. I had a great time and can’t wait for it to come out in properly in the UK next year so that I can see it again.

[Ben]

Terminator Genisys
This is one shameless fucking movie. And does anyone else think it weird to see ‘Matthew Smith’ in the credits?
I didn’t particularly mind the re-castings, though should have seen it coming that John Connor would go bad with Clarke in the role – that guy has been playing villains for years. No, where it comes apart is in its attempts to re-jig Sarah Connor, which misses the fact that the original film was by James Cameron, who has a fairly good track record on rendering capable female characters, but let’s throw that under the bus to try and riff on flipping around the gender dynamic, in a very-on-the-nose take on 2017 – honestly, if this is Hollywood’s idea of ‘helping’ it’s not. Yeah, let’s try to make Sarah a ‘stronger’ character than the version by Cameron – it’s a damn fool crusade doomed to failure.
Then there is, within the first hour, those shameless riffs on the original sequences – the thugs, the Terminator in flames, all that was missing was a car crusher. The problem with these is they feel wrong. You know this film is trying to cash in on the success of those films, but it’s not bringing much to the mix that’s either new or its own, it’s a parasite.
Throughout the entire movie, I only really got the sense that Ar-nuld was the only one having fun, everyone else? Meh.
Oh yeah, not to forget, they wasted Smith – if that’s what Hollywood wants to do with him he’s better off going elsewhere.

• This reply was modified 5 years, 2 months ago by Ben.

[Jon]

Yeah the El Camino movie was a nice epilogue to the series, but it was just that, an okay extended episode to give Jessie and some of the other characters a nice farewell… wouldn’t say it’s essential, but it was a nice throwback.
 
It did make me think though, they could totally get away with re-launching breaking bad as an anthology kind of series, focusing on other or even new characters, but with that same style of gritty story-telling… I guess that’s what BCS is though…

• This reply was modified 5 years, 2 months ago by Jon.

We watched WALL-E tonight. It’s been years since I saw it, and whilst I knew I liked it, I didn’t remember it being quite as brilliant as it is.

It’s one of Pixar’s best-looking films – the combination of photo-real detail with stylised designs and cartoonish elements is brilliant, and somehow they pull the combination off – and features some fantastic ideas. Not just the story concepts, which are pretty good, but also the messages (which are a bit blunt from an adult perspective, but perfectly pitched for kids).

It’s surprisingly emotional in places too. And the amount of storytelling that is done wordlessly, almost entirely visually, is hugely impressive. Great music too.

Definitely up there with Pixar’s best.

I posted this in the Marvel movies thread because I’m an idiot:

Luc Bessons Anna

I liked it. It’s check your brain at the door and go for a ride flashy espionage stuff. The action scenes are pretty good and, frankly, it’s well shot.

I don’t really understand the mediocre reviews. It’s not pretending to be something it’s not. If you like any of Bessons films, you’ll like this.

[RonnieM]

Anonymous wrote:

I’m an idiot

• This reply was modified 5 years, 2 months ago by RonnieM.

Dave wrote:

We watched WALL-E tonight. It’s been years since I saw it, and whilst I knew I liked it, I didn’t remember it being quite as brilliant as it is.
It’s one of Pixar’s best-looking films – the combination of photo-real detail with stylised designs and cartoonish elements is brilliant, and somehow they pull the combination off – and features some fantastic ideas. Not just the story concepts, which are pretty good, but also the messages (which are a bit blunt from an adult perspective, but perfectly pitched for kids).
It’s surprisingly emotional in places too. And the amount of storytelling that is done wordlessly, almost entirely visually, is hugely impressive. Great music too.
Definitely up there with Pixar’s best.

I thought a lot of the social commentary was a bit of a sledgehammer but I love a lot of the little touches. That EVE makes the Mac startup sound when she when she does the same is one of my favorites.

[SteveUK]

The Lion King (2019 edition)
.
So, obviously, this adds nothing important to the story. There are additions apparently, the new film’s longer but I’m not going to do a comparison. I dare say there’s a Youtube channel that’s done it.
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It’s fine, but I don’t regret missing it in cinemas. The story is thin, the characters thinner, only Timon and Pumba really stand out again, but it does look amazing in many scenes.
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The lions are always amazing. If I didn’t know they were CGI then I wouldn’t know they were CGI. The rest of the creatures vary from very good to “lion” standard.
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The cast are variable, but hampered by the dull script. Actors like Alfre Woodard and Chewitel Ejiofor are far better than what they have to work with. I will say that I think Ejiofor underplays Scar too much. I can understand that he didn’t want to follow the same path chosen by Jeremy Irons, but Scar lacks presence in many scenes. Occasionally Ejiofor steps up and delivers the kind of power that he’s capable of, but that just made me miss that energy in the rest of the film.
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Donald Glover does fine as Simba, but still, he’s been more interesting in other roles.
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If you watch it you wont hate it, but you may spend some time on your phone occasionally.

• This reply was modified 5 years, 2 months ago by SteveUK.

RonnieM wrote:

Tim wrote:

I’m an idiot

Boooo down vote

I liked The Irishman a lot. De Niro’s great, in probably his best lead role in decades, and I never found the CG deaging very distracting. Pacino’s good as Jimmy Hoffa, but not doing much that he hasn’t done before. Pesci’s good too, in a much less comedic role than he usually takes.

The rest of the cast don’t get a lot to do outside of a scene or two (Anna Paquin and Jesse Plemons are glorified extras in most of their scenes), though Ray Romano and Stephen Graham have some great scenes.

Despite being 3.5 hours and spanning many decades, it still felt smaller and more streamlined than Scorsese’s other mob movies, focused entirely on Frank Sheeran, and for most of the movie just on his relationship with Hoffa. It feels much more circumspect about mob life too; most of the characters get introduced with chyrons showing the (usually very violent) way in which they later died.

In terms of recent Scorsese, I still prefer Silence, but this is definitely up there among his best. It probably won’t lose too much from being watched on Netflix, but I’m glad I got to see it in the cinema.

Finally caught the ending of Preacher. I think it did a great job, but I’m a little sad because the show is ending and I really enjoyed it. I’ll miss it very much – the cast were so strong and the production so wild that you just never knew what was going to happen. I found it was always best when it meandered around rather than hitting necessary plot points. It really added a large amount to the comic book series, and I think ranks among the best comic book adaptations – even though I know many didn’t like it. Ennis should be very happy with how it finished, this odd book and TV show that defined his career.

I’ve been looking forward to The Irishman but I didn’t realise it was 3.5 hours long! That might put me off watching it for a while.

Dood, do you even Scorsese?

Yup. 208 minutes and 41 seconds long.
It looks like Endgame was only a warm-up for your bladder.

Talking of runtimes. I Watched IT: Chapter 2….All 2hrs 45min of it.
.
I liked the casting, especially Bill Hader who has some funny lines. And a lot of the individual scenes worked in isolation. But the runtime really killed anything enjoyable about this film.
.
There is just no need for it to be this long. There is a whole middle section where you have each character going off on a separate adventure. But they all play out the exact same way. There are flashbacks to the younger cast, that feel useless most of the time. And we get the pointless return of the crazy kid from the first film..You could cut a load of this and end up with a more reasonable length.
.
Honestly I think the first one works perfectly well on its own, so I can’t see ever wanting to revisit this.

Ian Smith wrote:

There is just no need for it to be this long.

.
That’s pretty much what I thought about the book

Will_C wrote:

Dood, do you even Scorsese?

My favourite Scorsese movie is Raging Bull, which manages to be a pretty much perfect film and barely break two hours.

Finally watched The Martian.

It’s a good movie about a guy stuck on Mars.

Spoilers Christian, jesus.

Ian Smith wrote:

Talking of runtimes. I Watched IT: Chapter 2….All 2hrs 45min of it.
.
I liked the casting, especially Bill Hader who has some funny lines. And a lot of the individual scenes worked in isolation. But the runtime really killed anything enjoyable about this film.
.
There is just no need for it to be this long. There is a whole middle section where you have each character going off on a separate adventure. But they all play out the exact same way. There are flashbacks to the younger cast, that feel useless most of the time. And we get the pointless return of the crazy kid from the first film..You could cut a load of this and end up with a more reasonable length.
.
Honestly I think the first one works perfectly well on its own, so I can’t see ever wanting to revisit this.

I honestly feel that I’ve gone mad when seeing the response to these movies. I’m utterly baffled by the success. I say this as a fan of horror and King is my favourite writer.

I thought the stuff with the kids was fine and the cast was decent but the horror elements were pathetic and both movies were beyond tedious by the end.

That guy is a terrible horror director. Absolutely dreadful. He takes strong material that is perfect for scares and turns it into an overblown mess of crappy, unrealistic CGI and that takes me right out of the movie. It was the same with Mama which also had a great premise, how managed to fuck that up with CGI is beyond me.

Utter toilet.

SteveUK wrote:

The Lion King (2019 edition)
.
So, obviously, this adds nothing important to the story.

I take it there’s no point watching this if you’ve already watched the animated version?

The whole thing just feels superfluous and a cynical creatively bankrupt move from Disney to make money.

And an extremely successful one at that.

Reasons to watch it?

Do you prefer CG to 2D?

Chewitel to Irons?

Want to hear Beyonce as the voice of a lioness?

Have kids you want to keep quiet for a couple of hours?

Chris-S wrote:

The whole thing just feels superfluous and a cynical creatively bankrupt move from Disney to make money.

To be fair, I would think it’s more a reintroduction as the original was made 25 years ago. There are people who have graduated college and started careers who weren’t even born when the film came out. So instead of just rereleasing the animated film in the theater like they used to do when we were kids (before VHS), they decided to give it another spin. It’s not for me but I’m not all that bothered either.

Chris-S wrote:

Ian Smith wrote:

Talking of runtimes. I Watched IT: Chapter 2….All 2hrs 45min of it.
.
I liked the casting, especially Bill Hader who has some funny lines. And a lot of the individual scenes worked in isolation. But the runtime really killed anything enjoyable about this film.
.
There is just no need for it to be this long. There is a whole middle section where you have each character going off on a separate adventure. But they all play out the exact same way. There are flashbacks to the younger cast, that feel useless most of the time. And we get the pointless return of the crazy kid from the first film..You could cut a load of this and end up with a more reasonable length.
.
Honestly I think the first one works perfectly well on its own, so I can’t see ever wanting to revisit this.

I honestly feel that I’ve gone mad when seeing the response to these movies. I’m utterly baffled by the success. I say this as a fan of horror and King is my favourite writer.

I thought the stuff with the kids was fine and the cast was decent but the horror elements were pathetic and both movies were beyond tedious by the end.

That guy is a terrible horror director. Absolutely dreadful. He takes strong material that is perfect for scares and turns it into an overblown mess of crappy, unrealistic CGI and that takes me right out of the movie. It was the same with Mama which also had a great premise, how managed to fuck that up with CGI is beyond me.

Utter toilet.

————————————————————————–———————————–

Oh yeah, it’s not scary at all. And chapter 2 definitely felt like they had a larger budget, so went crazy with the cgi. Which tends to add a lot of gloss to scenes that are meant to be more murky. I can’t really remember the last genuinely scary horror film I’ve seen.

They can do what they want and these remakes seem to be working very well commercially but I think the time gap thing is always a little nebulous with Disney cartoons. Most of the ones I watched as a kid were made before I was born. It’s the same with my kids.

I think a lot of punters like the familiar, it would explain those novelists who get great success churning out the same story with slightly different characters.

SteveUK wrote:

And an extremely successful one at that.

Reasons to watch it?

Do you prefer CG to 2D?
No

Chewitel to Irons?

Yes

Want to hear Beyonce as the voice of a lioness?

No

Have kids you want to keep quiet for a couple of hours?

Yes

But I really struggle to cope with sitting in the cinema watching something that doesn’t stimulate me at all. I tend to steer them clear of stuff I know is a cash grab designed to manipulate me into giving Disney money in this case while I sit and go thru the motions of watching a movie again that we’ve already seen done brilliantly before.

Toy Story 4 & the Spider-Man animated movie have heart, creativity and artistic or storytelling merit. They are made with passion.

The Grinch, Bumblebee and Detective Pikachu I ended up just going to sleep and praying for the 2 hours slog to be over.

Anything I can see every cog moving in the brains of the committees that made these movies I just switch off to, and I’m not the fiercest critic.

These cunts now recycling their ideas to cash in on them all over again is just a bit too much for me, there was a time when a Disney movie was a almost a guarantee of quality.

Ian Smith wrote:

Chris-S wrote:

Ian Smith wrote:

Talking of runtimes. I Watched IT: Chapter 2….All 2hrs 45min of it.
.
I liked the casting, especially Bill Hader who has some funny lines. And a lot of the individual scenes worked in isolation. But the runtime really killed anything enjoyable about this film.
.
There is just no need for it to be this long. There is a whole middle section where you have each character going off on a separate adventure. But they all play out the exact same way. There are flashbacks to the younger cast, that feel useless most of the time. And we get the pointless return of the crazy kid from the first film..You could cut a load of this and end up with a more reasonable length.
.
Honestly I think the first one works perfectly well on its own, so I can’t see ever wanting to revisit this.

I honestly feel that I’ve gone mad when seeing the response to these movies. I’m utterly baffled by the success. I say this as a fan of horror and King is my favourite writer.

I thought the stuff with the kids was fine and the cast was decent but the horror elements were pathetic and both movies were beyond tedious by the end.

That guy is a terrible horror director. Absolutely dreadful. He takes strong material that is perfect for scares and turns it into an overblown mess of crappy, unrealistic CGI and that takes me right out of the movie. It was the same with Mama which also had a great premise, how managed to fuck that up with CGI is beyond me.

Utter toilet.

————————————————————————–———————————–

Oh yeah, it’s not scary at all. And chapter 2 definitely felt like they had a larger budget, so went crazy with the cgi. Which tends to add a lot of gloss to scenes that are meant to be more murky. I can’t really remember the last genuinely scary horror film I’ve seen.

Yeah it’s been a while since I’ve watched anything effective either.

I think my first watch of the conjuring was the last time I genuinely felt frightened and the conjuring 2 had a handful of moments, but I’ve recently watched it again and I didn’t get the same thrill from it, possibly because I knew well what to expect.

The best horror and closest thing to scary I’ve watched since is the The Haunting of Hill House.

There’s some great directing going on there from Flanagan; less is more, building tension using clever filming techniques and sound, its really clever what he has used there, especially the way he uses the great cast and well written drama as a key component to building that tension.

I feel like it’s the best thing I’ve watched in ages, every night I was looking forward to my wife and kids going to bed so I could sit up and watch it alone with the lights out.

On Sunday evening we watched the Hitchcock classic REAR WINDOW. In my opinion this is the best film he ever directed, and the performances by James Stewart, Grace Kelly, and Thelma Ritter are flawless.

We spent a few hours during the day yesterday watching four episodes of STRANGER THINGS 3. Given that I usually don’t enjoy binge-watching, the fact that I spent four hours doing just that is an indication of how much I am enjoying this season. Can’t wait to get to the next four episodes.

‘Rear Window’ is my favourite; it balances all the suspense, melodrama, humour and technical skill better than any of Hitchcock’s other (very good) films.

Hahaha! Utter toilet is my new favourite phrase.

Having a beer and watching the original Terminator.

Each makes the other that little bit better.

I liked El Camino. Yes, it was like a long Breaking Bad episode, but hey, it was nice to have another one of those.

Also, first two eps of Doom Patrol: way better than I would’ve expected.

Doom Patrol was pretty good

Dave wrote:

Having a beer and watching the original Terminator.

Each makes the other that little bit better.

Are you saying that Terminator was so bad you need to be drunk to watch it?

I can have a beer without getting drunk.

It just feels like a beer movie.

Tell me one movie that isn’t.

Sideways?

[Todd]

KandorLives wrote:

Tell me one movie that isn’t.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_of_the_CometYear of the Comethttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_of_the_Comet

• This reply was modified 5 years, 1 month ago by Todd.

I prefer Night of the Comet.

I think Night of the Comet is very much a beer movie. it is very much a popcorn movie and beer goes well with popcorn.

I think Night of the Comet is very much a beer movie. it is very much a popcorn movie and beer goes well with popcorn.

Sweetbitter

I’m enjoying it. It reminds me of younger times.

KandorLives wrote:

Yup. 208 minutes and 41 seconds long.
It looks like Endgame was only a warm-up for your bladder.

Most will see it on Netflix, where pausing for a toilet break is no biggie. I’m greatly looking forward to it; my two fave actors and my fave director on the one project at last. And a re-emerged Pesci to boot.

Now I have seen Aquaman. It was ok, in a totally predictable but at least visually interesting way.

I find it fascinating that both in this Movie and in Black Panther, they seem to find it reasonable that an extremely advanced society is not only ruled by a king selected by genetic lottery and wearing clothes from the middle ages, but also that they are totally ok with the king fighting to the death with his siblings for the right to be king. Imagine if Prince Charles bastard brother showed up outside Buckingham Palace: “I have found Excalibur, and will now challenge you to a duel to stop Brexit!”

Tobias Radesäter wrote:

Imagine if Prince Charles bastard brother showed up outside Buckingham Palace: “I have found Excalibur, and will now challenge you to a duel to stop Brexit!”

I just imagined it, and I have to say I’d be all for it.

The “one true king” is a very old story. It doesn’t ring true for me either really, but something about it still appeals to a very wide audience.
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And what’s considered “advanced” varies from culture to culture, and “tradition”, “our ancestors” etc. get rolled out to excuse stuff all the time.
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It’s the way it’s always been.

A monarchic system in a highly developed society definitely feels anachronistic, but it does allow for some good drama in the storytelling. It makes it very easy to make the fate of the world depend on what one single person does. Or the entire universe, if you look at sci-fi like Jupiter Ascending.

Or you could do yourself a favour and NOT look at ‘Jupiter Ascending’.

SteveUK wrote:

Or you could do yourself a favour and NOT look at ‘Jupiter Ascending’.

Look at it, by all means. It looks great most of the time. Just turn off the sound and imagine a better story.

Watched the first episode and a bit of Swamp thing Across 4 attempts, 3 of which I fell asleep

It’s fucking crap

So much great source material and they come out with this less than mediocre effort

10 minutes of plot so far, bland actors giving bland performances to a poor script, bland sound, bland effects – just boring and uninspiring

So little going and so undemanding of your attention that you could easily have this on in the back while doing household chores with the odd glance up and follow everything that is happening

I was sad to hear that this got cancelled, now that I’ve watched the first episode and a bit I honestly couldn’t give a fuck – it can bore off

I’d like to enjoy this and watch this show, because of the character – has anyone watched it and does it get significantly better

Watched the last (ever) episode of Killjoys.
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As the climax to a season-long arc, the final boss fight was a bit underwhelming, to be honest.
.
But I liked how they left all the cast in places that felt satisfying and appropriately earned. I wish the series hadn’t ended, but if this has to be the end then it ended in a good place.

DavidM wrote:

But I liked how they left all the cast in places that felt satisfying and appropriately earned. I wish the series hadn’t ended, but if this has to be the end then it ended in a good place.

Having followed the cast and crew on social media and in person Q & As, they were a tight family so I can imagine that the end of the episode was written especially so that all these characters go out on top. My favorite parts were the returns of Pip and Lucy. When Lucy called Nucy her and Johnny’s child I laughed so hard . I think the boss fight was underwhelming too but The Lady was too foreign at her core to have a real knock down drag out.