What movies and TV shows are you watching?
What're you watching?
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I found Locke & Key to be way too tame & family friendly.
I don’t remember the comic being a lot more violent or gory?
Watching it, I don’t feel like anything is missing, either. This is an adventure story with some horror in it, it’s not a horror story as such. As such, I don’t mind the family-friendliness.
The book was graphic. They cut the scissors, brick, and axe scenes. There are a lot of changes. Grubb is gone, thankfully, and Rufus’s horrible grandmother.
The comics are very Lovecraft, but also filled with whimsy and wide-eyed wonder.
They’ve attempted to aim the show at a much younger audience. It’s more of a remix than a direct adaptation of I think it’s the first three volumes. They’ve focused on the E.T. elements and toned down The Tommyknockers.
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If youre talking about a particular persons brother theres a whole plotline where Jimmy flies off to the Amazon in search of a magic resurrection tree.
Nah, I lied.
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I tried watching the first episode of Sky One’s new GCHQ-based sitcom Intelligence the other day. Dismally unfunny. Definitely a case of the few decent jokes being put into the adverts and nothing being left over. The “brash American turns up and assumes everyone’s working for him” set-up just didn’t work at all. I had to go out for something five minutes from the end and I’ve not bothered to watch the rest.
I also found it surprisingly dumb about its source material. I know it’s a sitcom and not a documentary etc, but there’s one bit where Schwimmer’s character complains about the lack of natural light in the room they’re in, which has no windows (same with all the other rooms seen, including corridors). Yet look at the actual Doughnut and you’ll easily notice that it’s about 90% windows. There’s also an off-hand remark about HR being on the fourth floor and I’m genuinely not sure if that was meant to be a joke or just again poor research given there isn’t a fourth floor.
It just feels a bit like a sitcom set in the Empire State Building that acts like it doesn’t have a lift and isn’t in New York.
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There’s also an off-hand remark about HR being on the fourth floor and I’m genuinely not sure if that was meant to be a joke or just again poor research given there isn’t a fourth floor.
And how do you know that…?
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There’s also an off-hand remark about HR being on the fourth floor and I’m genuinely not sure if that was meant to be a joke or just again poor research given there isn’t a fourth floor.
And how do you know that…?
but also you can just count the floors from a picture, while looking at the many windows.
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I will believe there are four floors only if a tortured Sir Patrick Stewart says so.
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Do you think they got everything wrong deliberately, to prevent a visit from the security forces asking how they knew it all?
Maybe they heard about the 1940s SF writer (I want to say Asimov but I’m doubting myself) who accurately described the atomic bomb in a story and got a visit from the FBI when it was published.
It was Cleve Cartmill, for the story Deadline in 1944
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I went to college in Cheltenham and worked in Blockbuster (remember them?) as a part time job.
We had a lot of members who worked at GCHQ, they’d give us office numbers as contact information to call if their videos were overdue.
And the building does have four floors;
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Doughnut
You can see that the ground floor is brick, and the windows start above that;
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Yes. The ground floor and then floors 1-3 above it. No fourth floor.
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Picnic at Hanging Rock – The 1970s Australian movie by Peter Weir, not the recent TV miniseries. The basic premise is that three schoolgirls and their teacher go missing on a school outing to a huge rock formation in the bush. They disappear without a trace after another student witnesses them walking higher up the rock as if in a trance. There’s some great photography of the Outback and multiple scenes that evoke an eerie mysticism beyond the scope of human understanding. Did the girls ascend to a higher dimension or to some other world? Were they transformed into animals? Were they simply kidnapped and killed, their bodies hidden? The movie has no answers and that’s the point. Some of the acting’s not great but otherwise this is a terrific movie, I really recommend it.
Hardcore – Paul Schrader’s second film, starring George C. Scott as a devout and emotionally repressed Dutch Calvinist from the Midwest whose teenage daughter Kristen goes missing on a church trip to California. He hires a PI (Peter Boyle) who finds that Kristen is now working in the adult film industry. Scott fires Boyle and moves to LA to look for her himself, slowly becoming immersed in the LA’s seedy underbelly.
The movie shows a lot of promise, and certain sequences are great, especially towards the end as Scott hones in on the men who’ve taken his daughter, but it’s also pretty rough around the edges and the ending doesn’t work because it hinges on information about Kristen we were simply never given. I liked it for the most part but it could’ve been a lot better. Schrader’s First Reformed from 2018 is a much stronger movie about holding on to faith under pressure (and iirc is also about Dutch Calvinism, the faith Schrader was raised in).
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I also watched about half of the 80s anime Demon City Shinjuku, which I intend to finish tonight. It’s not a patch on director Yoshiaki Kawajira’s Ninja Scroll but the animation and gory violence are great. Unfortunately the script is pretty terrible and the English dubbing is atrocious (some characters inexplicably have America Southern and Mexican accents, even though the movie explicitly takes place in Tokyo) but I’m having fun with it.
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Picnic at Hanging Rock
The lack of resolution in that wonderful film is why not many Americans have seen it.
International films are vastly superior to American films with regard to the endings. Whether or not it was ingrained in us from the days of the Hayes Commission (which ruled that in movies the good guys have to win and the criminals have to pay for their crimes), Americans NEED to have a satisfying conclusion when they go to the multiplex. Even if the good guys die, it has to be in the act of a heroic performance. Just look at American remakes of foreign films for proof.
SPOILERS AHEAD:
The Vanishing — In the original European version, the boyfriend needs to know what happened to his missing girlfriend, and ends up buried alive in a coffin. In the American remake, he is able to escape from the coffin, kills his attacker, and write a book about it.The Departed — In the original Hong Kong film (Infernal Affairs), the mole within the police department gets away with it by killing the undercover officer; the bad guy wins. In the Scorsese remake the undercover cop (DiCaprio) is killed, but eventually the Mole (Damon) is killed by the undercover’s supervisor; the bad guy dies.
Oldboy — In the Korean original, the protagonist realizes he has had sex with his daughter. In the Spike Lee remake, his “daughter” is really an actress paid to pretend to be the daughter.
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Yeah, American remakes are almost always watered down versions of the original. Although I do like The Departed about as much as Infernal Affairs–the approach Scorsese takes to the material is so different that it becomes its own thing and thus not “watered down” in the same sense that the others are, although Wahlberg killing Damon in the end is definitely more palatable.
The original version of The Vanishing is my favorite horror movie along with Alien and The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. I can never decide how to order those three. The Vanishing probably has the best ending of the them (not that the other two don’t have strong endings too).
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I’m not saying The Departed is a bad film (it’s actually one of my favorite Scorsese ensemble films); just pointing out that American audiences typically expect our movies to have a redeeming conclusion. It’s our secret shame.
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I did a scifi horror double bill tonight.
First up was ‘The Invisible Man’.
I liked it. As the advertising has made clear (and unlike many other invisible films); the man of the title is not the protagonist, instead he’s the menace stalking Elizabeth Moss.
It’s not perfect; some characters make a few horror movie choices that are a bit crazy and/or forced by the plot, but the vast majority of the film takes its premise seriously and runs with it.
Along the way a few ideas about family dynamics are raised, addressed in passing and then dropped, but they’re not mishandled. They just don’t get a lot of screen time.
This is a solidly made horror thriller and I hope it does well. The audience I was with had a blast.
Next up was a screening on ‘The Color Out of Space’ followed by a Q&A with director and co-writer Richard Stanley.
The film is a lot of fun. It’s well designed, very well shot and both funny and tragic at different times.
If truth be told, something it jumps a little too quickly from one to the other, but it’s very entertaining at all times.
Nic Cage gets most of the meaty stuff, but the rest of the cast are all well chosen and do fine work.
There are even more “horror movie decisions” here than ‘Invisible Man’ but it’s a sillier movie from the outset. See it with friends. And beer and pizza.
Stanley himself was very entertaining, answering some good questions about the film and his absence from feature filmmaking for a couple of decades. He’s very much a quirky individual, but he came across as a smart, fun and really not a prima donna. I hope he does a lot of conventions promoting this film and the follow ups.
‘The Dunwich Horror’ should be in cinemas next year!
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International films are vastly superior to American films with regard to the endings. Whether or not it was ingrained in us from the days of the Hayes Commission (which ruled that in movies the good guys have to win and the criminals have to pay for their crimes), Americans NEED to have a satisfying conclusion when they go to the multiplex. Even if the good guys die, it has to be in the act of a heroic performance. Just look at American remakes of foreign films for proof.
While I think that Jerry is entirely correct, I do have one memorable counter-example:
(This is obviously going to be full of spoilers, specifically for the movie “The Pledge”.
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The Swiss writer Friedrich Dürrenmatt wrote a crime novel in 1958, “Das Versprechen” (The Promise) whose central concept was that it is fucking hard to catch a killer and that quite often, if it doesn’t happen by accident, the police just don’t have a sure way to do it. The inspector in the novel promises a mother that he will catch the killer of her child, and this promise breaks him in the end. Because he cannot fulfill it; everything he tries in the course of the novel fails and while the killer walks free, in the end, the policeman – retired by now – gives up his search. It’s a great novel that deconstructs the crime gerne nicely.
Now, there was a movie version back in fifties in Germany, titled “Es geschah am hellichten Tag” (“It happened by the Light of Day”) in which Gerd Fröbe (Goldfinger) plays the killer, and they couldn’t let that ending stand; the killer is caught in the end.
(not the original trailer, but a fan-made one)
It was a very good movie, and Gerd Fröbe was brilliant in it, but it chickened out where the ending is concerned.
Now, in 2001, Sean Penn of all people made a remake of this movie (or another adaptation of the novel, if you will), starring Jack Nicholson. This one followed the novel very closely indeed (apart from the setting changing to the US, of course), and it stuck to the novel’s ending. It’s a very good adaptation.
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Actually no, because it focuses (no pun intended) on Moss and her story, the threat of an Invisible enemy is threatening from the first. It’s not a benign or neutral thing that becomes corrupted.
Hollow Man was trying to talk about how power corrupts people.
But, avoiding potential spoiler; I think this film presents the development of invisibility as a means to an end and that end itself is a bad one.
Its developed to make evil actions easier and then used that way.
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We watched Uncut Gems last night, neither of us having any idea of what it was really about – my main exposure to it was the “This is how I win” meme (which turned out to be a very small line reading in the film itself).
What a well made, really well-acted, but incredibly tense, stressful film. All of the performances are great (bar the mistress), and it’s a pretty authentic looking delve into a world we’re, most of us, not familiar with. Sandler plays a largely unlikable character, but plays him well, and spends practically the entire film screaming. I’d say he was certainly snubbed this awards season.
It’s not a movie I’d be likely to rewatch, but that’s not to say it wasn’t good – it’s deliberately not a pleasant experience.
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Portrait of a Lady on Fire – This is out now and it’s well worth seeing in theaters, there’s a transcendent moment featuring a hand-clapping chorus at a bonfire about halfway through that just blew me away. It’s one of the scenes only cinema can do, the perfect marriage of image and sound. Another such moment concludes the film. These two scenes and a few others left me absolutely floored. On top of that, it tells one of the most moving love stories I’ve ever seen on film. What more can you ask for?
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I don’t normally post my thoughts on this topic, i sew Superman: Red Son animated film and it was okay, but i don’t think it’s the perfect adaption of the comic.
The plot was rushing and the changes are very unnecessary, i felt like the group who worked on this film are just made out of their own imaginary and doesn’t bother to look at the pages from the comics to understand the point of story and why some readers’ favorite Superman story are Superman: Red Son, the things i like about it was art style, good animation and a decent voice-acting cast. Overall, it wasn’t the best, but i enjoyed it
If you’re Mark Millar fan, you’ll probably dislike the film. or to those aren’t Mark Millar fan, you’ll probably like it.
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Better Call Saul is still so good. It’s great to have it back. The character development of Kim continues to be a standout element of the show. And it really feels like it’s starting to align with the early days of Breaking Bad now.
Between this, Curb and Inside No. 9 we’re spoiled for great TV at the moment.
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I also rewatched Terminator: Dark Fate this week (as my wife, who is almost as big a Terminator fan as I am, hadn’t seen it yet). I still like it a lot and thought it held up very well on a second viewing.
It’s a shame that it did so badly as it’s by far the best in the series since T2. Hamilton is part of that.
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You guys watched Altered Carbon S2? Kinda surprised there’s no thread for it…
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That’s good to hear.
The last novel I read was The Institute in September. That’s not good.
The latest Murakami short story in The New Yorker is tearily good.
Your face is very very very very very…
…good
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You guys watched Altered Carbon S2? Kinda surprised there’s no thread for it…
I am watching, and thoroughly enjoying it.
One thing that I didn’t love about the first season was Joel Kinnaman who whose acting I found wooden. So I’m quite happy with the new season, and Anthony Mackie.
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I’m rather looking forward to rewatching Breaking Bad after Better Call Saul ends. It should give a whole other vantage point to that series having greatly established the supporting characters in BCS.
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Castlevania is the greatest animated series of all time.
Come at me Batman: TAS and Fullmetal Alchemist!
Sypha just got shitty at Trevor because he said beer was better than sex (true). It’s the best!
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You must’ve been wearing beer goggles at the time.
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Okay, I lied and that was a few episodes ago, and now I think I’m watching the finale and it’s literally the best and most bonkers anime action i’ve seen since the original Evangelion.
If you aren’t watching this, well, frankly, we can’t be friends.
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I’m not watching it right this minute.
Can we be friends later?
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The Spirit of the Beehive – Early 1970s Spanish movie that sneaks in anti-fascist symbolism even though it was made during Franco’s regime. There’s almost no dialogue, and even less plot. What little plot there is can be described as a seven-year-old girl’s viewing of 1931’s Frankenstein sparking her earliest awareness of the natures of violence, prejudice, and beauty. The narrative sparseness means the first half can be a bit boring in places but as the movie goes on it becomes more dreamlike and hits you with indelible image after indelible image. At its heart, it’s about the childlike wonder, imagination, and empathy within us all that is absolutely antithetical to fascism.
It’s also clear influence on Guillermo del Toro’s Pan’s Labyrinth. If you’re a fan of that (like I am) then I suggest checking this out.
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It’s also clear influence on Guillermo del Toro’s Pan’s Labyrinth. If you’re a fan of that (like I am) then I suggest checking this out.
Have you ever seen del Toro’s Devil’s Backbone? It’s probably my favorite of his films.
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It’s also clear influence on Guillermo del Toro’s Pan’s Labyrinth. If you’re a fan of that (like I am) then I suggest checking this out.
Have you ever seen del Toro’s Devil’s Backbone? It’s probably my favorite of his films.
Yeah, Devil’s Backbone is great. I should give it a watch again. Backbone, Cronos, & Pan are my favorites by him, the rest are mixed bags.
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I finished Castlevania. That was some good crazy right there. S3.9 was especially wonderfully insane.
That episode is insane.
Its basically 20 minutes of no-dialogue and incredibly imaginative magic and demon fight scenes.The episode was literally nothing but sex and violence.
Kinda weird they went fully sexual like that so “late” in the series though… I don’t recall seeing any explicit nudity like that in previous episodes or previous seasons… Not that I mind, of course, just weird…
Anyways, the animations were top notch, particularly the Belmont part of the story… the black forger guy’s part was pretty inventive, but the animation wasn’t quite as top notch (plus it had some 3D effects, that I didn’t mind but it’s not the same).
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The latest episode of Avenue 5 might be one of the best episodes of television I have seen since….Twin Peaks: The Return Episode 8.
It’s amazing. It’s a master class. It’s horrifying, scary, disgusting, and so nauseating. But also intensely hilarious. My sides were destroyed. I was left wracked with pain from the tension and suspense, but also from laughter. This show is a marvel.
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The Player – Wow! This may have topped 3 Women as my favorite Altman (although admittedly I’ve only seen about a fifth of his massive catalogue). A brutal but human satire of Hollywood at its most cutthroat, it follows a studio exec (Tim Robbins) frantically trying to cover the very obvious fact–to the police and some of his colleagues–that he murdered a loud-mouthed, down-on-his-luck screenwriter in a fit of rage. It begins with a legendary long take tracking shot through a busy studio parking lot and office, with over a dozen speaking roles and a constantly roving camera. 65 actors play themselves, including Burt Reynolds, Bruce Willis, Julia Roberts, Jeff Goldblum, Cher, Harry Belafonte, and there’s a funny scene involving the similarly named Malcolm McDowell and Andie MacDowell. As well as being a great send-up of the movie business and the cliches of American filmmaking, it’s also a really compelling noir. I really had a great time with this.
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As well as being a great send-up of the movie business and the cliches of American filmmaking, it’s also a really compelling noir. I really had a great time with this.
It’s a remarkable movie, and one of the things I like best about it is that Griffen Mill is the better kind of executive, homicidal rages aside. He really does care about movies, but he wants them a particular way.
He’s (almost) the best of Hollywood, as well as a satire on it.
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I finished Castlevania. That was some good crazy right there. S3.9 was especially wonderfully insane.
That episode is insane.
Its basically 20 minutes of no-dialogue and incredibly imaginative magic and demon fight scenes.The episode was literally nothing but sex and violence.
Yes. All the things I love
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As well as being a great send-up of the movie business and the cliches of American filmmaking, it’s also a really compelling noir. I really had a great time with this.
It’s a remarkable movie, and one of the things I like best about it is that Griffen Mill is the better kind of executive, homicidal rages aside. He really does care about movies, but he wants them a particular way.
He’s (almost) the best of Hollywood, as well as a satire on it.
I liked that too. There’s a great scene where he tells the pushy director played by Richard E. Grant to pitch his movie in 25 words or less and Grant begins by setting the first scene in intricate detail, and Griffin doesn’t stop him because he can tell it’ll be a great story. He really just wants to tell good stories.
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Castlevania is the greatest animated series of all time.
Come at me Batman: TAS and Fullmetal Alchemist!
Sypha just got shitty at Trevor because he said beer was better than sex (true). It’s the best!
I get the quote now. I was a bit behind. Trevor got off lightly.
Almost reached the climax now.
My main issue with Castlevania is every time there’s a battle or echoes of platform-y jumps, my thumbs get all twitchy.
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Brother in law has been praising John Wick as an example of action done right, while disparaging the MCU films – wife was keen to see what the fuss was about so we watched it on Saturday night (all three are on Netflix ATM).
It was… fine? I wasn’t expecting it to be so silly (secret assassins’ hotels and all that); I thought it’d be a lot grittier. I didn’t find anything remarkable about the action sequences either. What am I missing here?
I’ve said it before, but 30 years ago John Wick would have been a Canon production starring Chuck Norris or Michael Dudikoff. It’s elevated by the level of love put into making each movie and the utterly wholesome origin of the franchise as Keanu wanting to hang out with his friends.
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John Wick = Awesome.
“All this for a fucking dog?” Yes, yes, yes.
The sequels? Meh, cool action sequences but that’s about it, all the assassin world bollocks don’t help either.
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What the actual what what??
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