What're you watching?

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What movies and TV shows are you watching?

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I’d had it “taped” for a while and so we finally watched Solo last night. I knew pretty much nothing about it, but went into it knowing that it wasn’t received well and was kind of a flop. That said, the same kind of applied to Rogue One and that’s one of my favourite of all the Star Wars films.

Solo was… fine. It starts pretty poorly; very rushed with a lot of things glossed over. Alden Ehrenreich is pretty good throughout and while he doesn’t look at all like Ford, there were several moments where he really channelled a similar energy in an impressive way. Some of the latter comedy was delivered really well and we get a decent mix of settings, aliens, and vehicles. And that there’s no Force/Jedi nonsense at all (apart from the Darth Maul teaser) is a huge plus.

(The worst parts were the army recruiter giving Han the surname solo (cringe), and Harrelson’s Beckett watching his girlfriend blow herself up, then burying her, lashing out at Solo, and then cracking wise and going back to talking about the heist – all while at her graveside. He really got over that quickly…

I haven’t kept up with the mechanics of the studio but I gather they are scaling back the spin-off films – according to the Wikipedia page there could still be a sequel or two. I hope there are only so we get more of Alden Ehrenreich who deserves better.

Andrew wrote:

I’d had it “taped” for a while and so we finally watched Solo last night. I knew pretty much nothing about it, but went into it knowing that it wasn’t received well and was kind of a flop. That said, the same kind of applied to Rogue One and that’s one of my favourite of all the Star Wars films.

I think Rogue One was much better received generally, and did much better financially – it made over a billion worldwide.

Accidentally ‘reported’ that post while replying, sorry!

Wondered what that was about.

Right, Rogue One wasn’t quite the disaster, but from what I gather it’s not overall seen so fondly.

I thought both were fine. Pretty good old-fashioned Star Wars movies.

Rogue One I think would’ve done even better if it hadn’t by nature been so depressing. There was no way it couldn’t end in everybody’s deaths, which puts kind of a dampener on the whole action adventure thing.

Andrew wrote:

Wondered what that was about.

Right, Rogue One wasn’t quite the disaster, but from what I gather it’s not overall seen so fondly.

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, I thought it was a pointless movie

Not enough drama for me and the cliched characters felt like they were created by a focus group

It looked good though

I also never finished watch Solo

Both Rogue One and Solo suffered from my lack of giving a fuck, I’m not a fan of prequels. I don’t feel there’s merit in them unless they are incredibly well written (Better Call Saul)

Force Awakens and the Last Jedi on the other hand both had my emotional engagement and pushed things forward

Andrew wrote:

Wondered what that was about.

Right, Rogue One wasn’t quite the disaster, but from what I gather it’s not overall seen so fondly.

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I’m not sure where you gathered that from? Maybe confusion with Solo?
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Rogue One made a billion, has an 86% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes (and 84% critics score) and Disney are making a spinoff for Disney+ about Cassian Andor spying for the Rebellion.
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All in all, it’s a real success.

Just boot up A New Hope after watching Rogue One, it really works.

Of course I’m far from neutral on this one, R1 has Donnie Yen in a SW movie. I can’t not go for that.

In other news, we’ve been working our through The Chef Show. It’s basically John Favreau, hanging out with his chef mate and talking and cooking food with guests, but damn does it work as fun, light viewing.

ROGUE ONE is my favorite Star Wars film since the original trilogy, primarily because it does not worship at the feet of the Skywalker family. Instead, it takes a throwaway line from A New Hope and builds it into a legit drama about the rebels who sacrificed their lives to get the Death Star plans to the leaders of the rebellion. It doesn’t pander, it doesn’t suddenly rewrite the saga so that Jyn or Cassian or Chirrut Imwe survive, it just tells a heroic story about a team of has-beens and losers and social outcasts who rise up to the challenge of doing something suicidal because someone has to do it.

It really feels flawless. You basically know at the start how this film will end; but the director and the writers and the cast all unite to give you a great movie along the way. I love it.

[Jon]

Well the one good thing about Rogue One is that it’s the most WARS one in the whole Star Wars franchise… I don’t even mind the inevitability of the plot, because not all movies have to end up in a bright note (IW for exemple), but the movie had too many other issues. Very all over the place for the 1st 3 quarters, for starters… And this might be the one time where they should’ve probably used Vader more.
 
So yeah, interesting idea, bland execution. Solo was kind of the inverse, bland idea, good execution.

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

I watched the first episode of Looking for Alaska, Hulu’s new John Green adaptation. It’s good! I read the book, but it was years ago and I don’t remember much of it.

It’s created by Josh Schwartz, who did The OC, and it’s set in 2005, when The OC was on the air. The show is, at least in the first episode, very soundtrack-heavy, and almost all of the songs used are what I was listening to at the time (Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, The Killers, Bloc Party, Rilo Kiley, The Postal Service), and a lot of the same type of music that would have been used in The OC when it was brand new, now used as period setting.

It’s definitely the most I’ve ever felt nostalgic stirrings from a soundtrack.

King of Thieves
This is a very strange movie.
The marketing would have you believe this is a comedy caper, or a humourously told tale of crime and, for a while, it sort of does that. It contrasts where the characters are with where they were, with a lightness of tone that skates over the actual violence of their crimes.
As the film goes on, it becomes very apparent that this bunch really are a load of very unpleasant, old bastards. If you think of Broadbent as playing genial old codgers, he really goes against that here with aging psychopath but no less psychopathic Terence. Winstone is more typecast as Danny. And there is the clear sense that, if the cops hadn’t swooped on the lot of them, they would have ended up killing up each other.
Even after the film has decided to make it very, very clear that These Are Not Nice People, it still sometimes flits back to jaunty caper sequence, like when they are stashing the loot, which makes for a very weird, off-kilter feel.
What is darkly amusing is the way the cops go about getting them. The entire gang, with the absence of Basil, has no tech awareness whatsoever – they are on CCTV, their faces and car number plates are visible, their phone conversations are intercepted, they had no chance of getting away with it. But let’s say they were more tech aware, I don’t think they would have cared. These were a bunch of arrogant, nasty, manipulative and violent individuals – with a very fast willingness to turn all of those aspects onto each other. There’s no honour among theives? There really isn’t and the fallout isn’t pretty to watch.
Still, so long as you go in not expecting what it was marketed as, this is a well-executed movie.

[Andrew]

SteveUK wrote:

I’m not sure where you gathered that from? Maybe confusion with Solo?

It might have just been the vibe from MW (Jim?); I’ll ignore RT but it only scored 65% on Metacritic, so it’s not beloved.

Chris-S wrote:

Both Rogue One and Solo suffered from my lack of giving a fuck, I’m not a fan of prequels.

I dig, there’s a lack of tension because you already know what comes next – but then we know James Bond isn’t going to die but still generally feel a bit of confected anxiety when he’s dangling off a skyscraper.

We watched the first two episodes of the new (final!) season of The Good Place last night – it’s still as good as ever; a clever show that’s “feel good” without being saccharine. I wouldn’t say it’s “laugh out loud”, but it’s still one of my current faves.

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

[SteveUK]

I’m one of the people on MW who had a problem with it but;
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There’s a lot to love; the cast all do well, it looks very good, some of the spectacle is spectacular and it tugs the heart strings a few times but it’s not what it could’ve been. A dark thriller, a gritty war movie, a daring heist film or a twisty spy story. It flirts with a lot of these things, but in the end it’s just a spin off we didn’t need, telling a story that we could sort of make up for ourselves if we felt like it.

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That was my mini-review.
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I’m looking forward to the TV prequel to the prequel though.

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

Andrew wrote:

Wondered what that was about.

Right, Rogue One wasn’t quite the disaster, but from what I gather it’s not overall seen so fondly.

They were both incredibly troubled productions, with major changes behind the camera and extensive reshoots.

[Ben]

Sicario
Want an example of stunning visuals and cinematography? Go here. There are some really exquisite sequences in this, the descent to the tunnel against a sunset dusk sky, but it’s the ending that is particularly brilliant and haunting.
From the start I had read the film as being about a cartel hitman.
Turns out there is a hitman, but he’s not necessarily working for the cartels in the way you expect. This card is kept in reserve, right up until the end, then it gets played for maximum effect.
A well-told story, backed up by an excellent cast, what stands out is it commitment to its premise. It starts and follows through all the way to the end without deviating. And it would have been very easy to deviate, to provide some warm moral comfort. “This ain’t that kind of movie, bruv”
Sicario 2
Different and distinct from its predecessor, but set in the same world, this takes a very different tack.
It also managed to make me be very happy with the idea of a psychopath brat being kidnapped. That said brat gets kidnapped and then done over psychologically, by her kidnappers presenting a fake version of being her rescuers, starts to reverse that.
However as one kid ends up exiting this world, so does another wish to get deeper into it and does so. In both cases it’s an examination of the roads open to each character – or the lack of.
One weakness of this film was that it used the now cliche plot device of politicians sanctioning extreme operations, then retreating from said authorisation when it all gets a bit too hot and reality bites.

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

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m00095j6/van-meegeren-the-forger-who-fooled-the-nazis
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The true story of a dutch forger who, in the 1930’s and 40’s, sold pictures to the art establishment, and also to the Nazi elite when the country was occupied.
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It’s one of those documentaries that you assume will be turned into a movie at some point? The man at the centre is a slippery character, who would be a gift to an older actor (I can imagine Ian McKellan having a ball in the role).

Terminator 2.

Judgement: Great.

Any beer this time? If you carry on and watch 3 through 5 then alcohol must be guaranteed.

You’ve convinced to watch the first two Terminator films this week, before the new one drops. Not that I really need too much convincing.

No, I was tired last night so just had a glass of milk and a packet of Rolos. It wasn’t quite the same.

No plans to watch T3, Salvation and Genisys again any time soon, I just wanted to refresh my memory of the first two ahead of seeing Dark Fate on Wednesday.

Shall we create a dedicated thread for that one?

I’ve gone ahead and made one ahead of Wednesday.

Watched Cries and Whispers last night on Criterion. If you like the color red and depressing tales of stifled passions in extravagant Swedish mansions, then this is the movie for you. I found it quite moving by the end and the imagery is stunning and unsettling throughout.

Started Chungking Express too but it was getting late so put the second half off to tonight. It’s good but after watching this and Fallen Angels, the melancholic, immaculately designed In the Mood for Love seems like it may be a bit of an outlier in Wong Kar-wai’s filmography. Chungking and Angels are both pretty chaotic, even though there’s still very little plot.

I’ve gotta have a sitcom going and right now it’s Parks and Rec. I forgot how funny Chris Pratt is in this, especially in the early seasons. The whole ensemble is great but he and Aubrey Plaza are the standouts. Justin Theroux is also really funny in his season 2 guest role as Leslie’s narcissistic boyfriend.

Dave wrote:

No, I was tired last night so just had a glass of milk and a packet of Rolos

I’m yearning for some Rolos now. Made worse because they aren’t sold on this continent.

I’ll have to send you some as a care package. But you can’t have my last one.

(When I lived in France I remember my mates bringing over all sorts of UK goodies on a regular basis that you couldn’t buy over there.)

Living with Yourself.

Its … interesting. I give it a “good” and I will fight anyone who says otherwise, including all you usual naysayers (you know who you are).

Yeah, Living With Yourself Was just alright. I can’t really nail down what I though it was missing. It’s well written, Paul Rudd and Aisling Bea are great. But the whole things just a bit forgettable. It does work well as a self contained story though, so I won’t be heartbroken if there isn’t another season.

I’m probably like, i dont know, six episodes in. But Paul Rudd does a pretty good job of his role(s) (avoiding spoiler) and Aisling Bea comes out of nowhere.

I also like how it subverts things like the chinese spa guys being people not plot devices. It’s not perfect, but its better than a lot of the shit on netflix.

I watched Living With Yourself this past weekend and I’d give it a B-. I’d say it’s good but not great. Rudd and Bea are quite good. The storytelling style where each episode is a different perspective works but it does lack the spark to make it great.
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Thinking about it a bit more, I don’t think Rudd’s characters were different enough. The gap between them didn’t seem that large.

[Christian]

More Doom Patrol.

Jesus, the Beard Hunter is really out there. I don’t think I’ve even read the comics in which he appeared.

The variation of Beard Hunter on the show was brilliant. Fantastic stuff.

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

[Will_C]

He’s in an issue of Morrison’s Doom Patrol, but I think that’s it. If you haven’t read Morrison’s run it’s incredible, his best after Invisibles imo.

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

Will_C wrote:

He’s in an issue of Morrison’s Doom Patrol, but I think that’s it. If you haven’t read Morrison’s run it’s incredible, his best after Invisibles imo.

Yeah, I love Morrison’s DP, and I managed to get my hands on most – but not all – of the issues back in the nineties. I should get some collected editions now that you can…

Yeah, Morrison’s run is great and the beard hunter is hilarious.

[DavidM]

I watched Curse of the Golden Flower last night, for the first time since it was in cinemas (2006?).
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It’s really a beautiful movie. Every shot is just so colourful and beautifully framed. It’s like looking at a series of paintings rather than a movie.
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The blurb on the DVD box — “Shimmering Martial Artistry” — is highly misleading, though. There are a couple of fights, and yes they are well staged, but this isn’t what I would call a “martial arts film”. It’s more like a BBC costume drama done in China. Or like Shakespeare with slower pacing. If that’s not your thing, you would be disappointed if you only came for the “Shimmering Martial Artistry”.
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I enjoyed it, but it’s probably the weakest of the run of Chinese epics that came out in the decade.

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

I thought Living With Yourself was okay, but it probably should have just been a movie. They seemed to run out of plot by the end of the season, and I just wanted it to be over. I liked the bits with Bea, but they kept introducing elements and not knowing what to do with them, like Alia Shawkat and Jon Glaser, who are completely wasted, or that weird plotline with the farmers.

DavidM wrote:

I watched Curse of the Golden Flower last night, for the first time since it was in cinemas (2006?).
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It’s really a beautiful movie. Every shot is just so colourful and beautifully framed. It’s like looking at a series of paintings rather than a movie.
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The blurb on the DVD box — “Shimmering Martial Artistry” — is highly misleading, though. There are a couple of fights, and yes they are well staged, but this isn’t what I would call a “martial arts film”. It’s more like a BBC costume drama done in China. Or like Shakespeare with slower pacing. If that’s not your thing, you would be disappointed if you only came for the “Shimmering Martial Artistry”.

Did you see The Assassin, David? It’s along those lines: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Assassin_(2015_film)

I liked it but should watch it again. The beautiful visuals distracted me from some of the subtitles and the court intrigue plot lost me partway through.

No, I’ve never heard of The Assassin. I’ll look out for it.
The combination of visuals that you have to *look* at and subtitles that are often quite verbose is a definite problem with The Curse of the Golden Flower. Maybe it needs to be watched twice, once just looking at the picture and ignoring the dialogue, and then again concentrating on the subtitles.

I remember seeing The Assassin in HMV a lot and not knowing anything about the movie, so I looked it up and saw that it seemed to be pretty highly regarded by critics when it was released.

Sight & Sound Top 20 Films of 2015: ‘The Assassin’ Slays the Competition, Beautifully

So I bought it. I haven’t watched it yet but I’m sure that I will.

Also, David you should check out Zhang Yimou’s Shadow. It came out here on dvd in September, but I saw it last year at the London Film Festival. It seems to very much fit with what you say here for the Curse of the Golden Flower, which I haven’t seen.

[Jon]

That Assassin movie looks pretty sweet… I’m fairly certain I haven’t seen it, but maybe I have… it kinda rings a bell, but I might be confusing it with something else… I’m gonna track it down…
 
Speaking of asian flicks… there’s one I REALLY love, although I’m sure the effects must look super shitty at this point, but it’s very anime-ish, sort of Ninja Scroll-ish (weird ninjas with weird abilities)… which I why I liked it so much… https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shinobi:_Heart_Under_Blade
 
Edit: Nevermind it’s not Ninja Scroll-ish, it’s a flat out adaptation… yeah, no wonder it looked so much like that… xD

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

Terminator: Dark Fate is pretty much exactly what I hoped it would be. It’s kind of a ‘Force Awakens’ for the franchise, but it balances the new and old elements better than that movie, and actually feels like it has its own story to tell – albeit one that’s very much modelled on T1 and T2.

The action is very good, the new characters are likeable (if a little broadly sketched) and Hamilton is great and anchors the whole thing.

This is a fun night out at the movies.

What about the overall look Dave? I thought it looked a bit “cheap” in all the promo footage / trailers. Glad to hear you enjoyed it, I’ll definitely be checking it out on home release (we’ll not get a chance to go to the cinema as we’ve already got the grandparents booked in on baby sitting duties for several weekends in November / December).

Hero. I think this was the first of the big Chinese historical epics that came to the mainstream in the wake of Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, and probably still the best of them. It’s by the same director as the Curse of the Golden Flower which I watched the other night, and though I probably paid no attention to the director’s name the first time I saw them, watching them back-to-back this week makes their common traits obvious. The use of light and colour in both films is stunning. In Hero, the colour is almost a plot element in itself, as each scene has its own distinctive colour scheme, and the colour sort of anchors you in which version of the story you are seeing. The story isn’t linear: it’s told in flashbacks in a conversation between an evil king and the assassin who has come to kill him, and several possible versions of the story are presented before you get to the truth at the end. And the truth is unexpected, and actually quite an emotional revelation.
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But you probably came for the martial arts, and … they are just ridiculous. Just beautiful choreography. Sword fighting like ballet. The film is basically end-to-end sword fights, but none of it is gratuitous action, every fight has a reason and is played out in a way that reveals something about the plot or the characters.
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Weirdly, the version I just watched on DVD was dubbed, but I’m sure I saw it subtitled at the cinema. Dubbing helps you concentrate on the visuals, but somehow it doesn’t feel quite right even though I have no complaints about the quality of the voice acting. I might have to see if there’s an option to switch to subtitles, and then watch it again.

Bruce wrote:

What about the overall look Dave? I thought it looked a bit “cheap” in all the promo footage / trailers.

I noticed a few shots that looked slightly different from the trailers, so they’ve definitely polished it up a bit since.

Having said that, it doesn’t look as visually distinctive as T1 or T2 – not quite grungy enough or slick enough to be either. It looks like a standard modern action movie, basically – but the action is mostly well-staged and easy to follow, and there are some imaginative and inventive bits of fight choreography.

The first time I saw ‘Hero’ was on a DVD that a co-worker from Hong Kong lent me. That was before the theatrical release in the West.
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The Western cinema version is slightly different, but I haven’t done a scene by scene comparison.
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It’s a very good film whichever cut you watch.

DavidM wrote:

Weirdly, the version I just watched on DVD was dubbed, but I’m sure I saw it subtitled at the cinema. Dubbing helps you concentrate on the visuals, but somehow it doesn’t feel quite right even though I have no complaints about the quality of the voice acting. I might have to see if there’s an option to switch to subtitles, and then watch it again.

I can watch most movies dubbed(though it’s really hard when they’re English ones), but somehow it never really works for me with Chinese ones. There’s a peculiar quality to the dialogues that doesn’t translate; they often come across as a bit silly in dub when they don’t when you’re listening to the original language version. And I don’t think it’s just because you’re one step removed from the dialogue; I think there is a particular quality to the melody and rhythm of the language without which too much is lost.

Bong Joon-ho’s new movie Parasite is really good, probably his best since Memories of Murder. It’s beautifully shot and darkly funny, with a gripping narrative, a deeply fucked up but still likable cast of con artists and their rich marks, and some of the most ingenious scams ever pulled off on screen. Tonally and thematically it’s very similar to Jordan Peele’s Get Out and Us; I’d say it’s better than the latter.

Like a lot of Korean movies I’ve seen, it feels as if it’s an act or two too long (I wonder why this is such a common factor among Korean movies; are their storytelling/cinema traditions so different?). The last ten minutes or so are fine but pretty superfluous. Until the denouement the movie doesn’t put a foot wrong and just keeps getting better and better, more and more shocking and brutal. That the final minutes are a bit of a letdown doesn’t take much away from the impact of the rest of the film.

DavidM wrote:

The use of light and colour in both films is stunning. In Hero, the colour is almost a plot element in itself, as each scene has its own distinctive colour scheme, and the colour sort of anchors you in which version of the story you are seeing.

Hero is one of the most beautiful films I have ever seen. I don’t particularly love the story but it’s visually incredible.

I loooove Hero… I always found it much much much better than Crouching Tigger Hidden Dragon and those other ones… it also helps that I liked the story and it’s less sappy that those other ones… =P

[Jon]

Also, re-watched Watchmen (the movie) tonight… First of all, kinda surprised that it still holds super well visually… there’s only a few moments here and there where the FX looks shady, like Jon getting dressed and Dan gliding out of his ship (and those always did), and mostly, it’s Jon’s dick that looks weird… well his dick and sometimes his FX full body… anyways, very few moments here and there, the rest of the movie is still pretty fucking stunning visually.
 
Anyways, one of the biggest points of contention with this movie is both the costumes and the action scenes… So while I was rewatching, a thought struck my brain, it all fits very well and the reason, in the movie at least (and I don’t know to which extent it’s also true in the GN) these characters LOVE being superheroes… they keep saying they don’t miss it and all that, but the reality is that they’re simply too in love with the idea, so it actually makes sense that they would dress the part, in a very flamboyant and cool way… I mean, sure, those costumes might not be the lameass home-made costumes they wore in the book, but they look MUCH better if I’m being honest, plus they’re obviously a comentary on SH movie costumes from that period as well. And, fittingly enough, in the case of Rorshach and Doc Manhattan, the two guys who aren’t really in love with the SH concept, are the two that dress more “realistically”. So yeah, in the end, and knowing Snider is everything but subtle, I think it was a good call to update the costumes.
 
The same is sort of true about the fighting sequences, I’ve heard a billion times how it looks like they all have superpowers, and here’s my take, it’s two main things, 1) they’re not REALLY doing superhuman stuff, yes, they’re punching and kicking SUPER hard, but not on a super human level, however 2) the slo-mo effects really amplify the brutality of the fighting, which is why it seems that way… but again, like with the costumes, I think it was a good call to do it this way, to really reinforce the idea that these guys actually love beating bad guys, like in an almost psychologically unhealthy way. So the fighting scenes they went with do a good job of glorifying the violence they unleash on the criminals while also glamourizing their whole SH fantasy/fetish… I mean, in the end all of those guys are pretty fuckin’ mentally damaged so the whole thing is rather fitting. And again, the style they use is also a comentary on the fighting sequences of every movie post-matrix.
 
But in the end, let’s be honest, it just also looks cool, which is why probably Snider did it… TBH, I never really like the costumes in the GN, cause they looked like shit (except rorshach)… and those two things that I’ve always been on the fence about kinda clicked for me this time around. There’s a whole obvious ridiculousness to a lot of the movie, and I think it was done partly on purpose, although to be fair, again, Snider ain’t the most subtle guy around and sometimes he just goes unnecessarily obvious and in your face… some scenes could’ve done with some more editing, like the sex scene.
 
But anyways, besides all that the only thing I wish they had done, is go with another animation style for the Tales of the Black Freighter sections of the movie… the modern fully animated style just doesn’t work… perhaps a more old-school style and look would’ve worked better for those, like the way the animate some comicbooks with moving panels and such instead of full animations, or like those old Marvel cartoons, while keeping Gibbon’s drawings as intact as possible… that would’ve been better I think. That’s the one thing I’d change in the movie.

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

The Lighthouse is one of the best theater experiences I’ve ever had, this movie needs to be seen on the big screen with a good sound system. Not many theaters are carrying it, presumably because of the silent-film era aspect ratio and its frequent gross-out moments, so if it’s playing near you see it ASAP. I don’t think anything I write could do it justice. It’s just a lovingly crafted, utterly unique and visceral assault on the senses.

Jon wrote:

I think it was a good call to do it this way

No it wasn’t. It always completely missed the point.

In the original comic the point was the they were long retired and over the hill. Laurie and Dan are completely knackered and gasping for breath. The super stylised fighting scenes are good for a martial arts movie but wrong for what those scenes were meant to be portraying.

Jay Leno’s Garage.
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Specifically the movie cars.
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I assume he’s pretending to know less that he actually does, but maybe he’s totally about the cars and the filmmaking has never been important to him?

Watched the new Netflix movie Eli. It’s about a little boy who’s allergic to the outside world. So his parents take him to a totally not haunted house, were a doctor claims to have a cure.
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Look, this isnt going to be winning any Oscars. It’s a solid 2 1/2 star little supernatural horror film. But I’m always moaning about movies being predictable, and being able to guess a twist ten minutes in. So i was pleased when how this starts, and how it ends, caught me totally by surprise. It gets daft as fuck. But I had fun with it.

I saw The Day Shall Come last night, and loved it. Chris Morris’ latest project, it’s about Moses Al Shabaz, a Black Nationalist who runs a crappy little farm in the middle of Miami, tries to get kids out of street crime, and believes the Great Inversion is coming, a day on which the rule of the white man shall end and the black man shall take control of America. And on that day he’ll use his mental powers to tear down all the cranes in the city. And if they need help, they’ll use an air horn to summon the last dinosaurs, kept alive in underground CIA labs after the white man killed most of them.

The FBI decide he’s a good target to stitch up – get an informant to pose as a terrorist, offer him cash and weapons, goad him into accepting, and then arrest him as a terrorist – and in doing so claim they’ve prevented a terrorist attack. Except that Moses is more interested in accepting money to keep his farm open, and is so incompetent that he’s hardly aware of what he’s being offered when the FBI try and be circumspect about it. Naturally between Moses’ mental illness and the shady way in which the FBI are operating, things get way out of hand, and everything moves towards an inevitable, tragic conclusion.

Up until the last 10 minutes or so, this is a barrel of laughs, full of the pointed humour and razor-sharp dialogue Morris excels at, in the service of a furious social message. Moses and his followers are laughable because they’re harmless. The FBI is laughable because the’re spending untold amounts of money to make themselves look good, but the biggest impact Moses has on the world is hammering some guy’s gun into uselessness, and the FBI are ruining people’s lives.

I don’t want to go into a huge amount of detail about the ending, but it’s hard to talk about the film without mentioning some of the things that inform and come out of it. Naturally, it’s a tragedy, but in one way it’s also a small win. It hammers home the inhumanity of policing in the US in a number of ways, especially when it comes to ethnic and religious minorities and the mentally ill. The series of cards at the end that tell you what happened to the characters next leaves out one important detail, but the implication is enough to underline the biggest part of that tragic conclusion to the movie.

It’s billed as being based on a hundred true stories. And unfortunately, while the details are clearly exaggerated the thrust of the events on display are not. The FBI regularly sets up people in this way. Many of them are mentally ill and wind up dead or in prison because they’re an easy way to make people in power look good. The case of the Liberty City Seven is the clearest influence, but there’s almost a decade of evidence that this has been going on, and continues to this day.

garjones wrote:

Jon wrote:

I think it was a good call to do it this way

No it wasn’t. It always completely missed the point.

In the original comic the point was the they were long retired and over the hill. Laurie and Dan are completely knackered and gasping for breath. The super stylised fighting scenes are good for a martial arts movie but wrong for what those scenes were meant to be portraying.

 
And yet they still win easy peasy, even if they get winded. So what IS really the point? That they’re older and fatter? Or that they still kick the living shit out of those punks and enjoy it?
 
Also, in the movie they end up winded… maybe not as much, but still.

Man, I really want to see both The Day Shall Come and The Lighthouse. The Day Shall Come has already been and gone to cinemas here without me noticing (I don’t think it was actually shown in a lot of places), but the Lighthouse starts in November here.

I saw this yesterday:

Based on Picketty’s book. It shows the way capital and society have developed from the 18th to the 21st century, and makes an argument that we have been sliding backwards. It makes its argument well, but personally, I would’ve liked it to be a bit denser on information and rely less on pure imagery.

[Christian]

Jon wrote:

And yet they still win easy peasy, even if they get winded. So what IS really the point? That they’re older and fatter? Or that they still kick the living shit out of those punks and enjoy it?

You make a good argument, but in the end the psychological angle (which I can see) is less important than the effect on the audience: for the audience, what you’re seeing are superhuman movie fights, like you know from Matrix etc. It’s people with superhuman abilities, and at the very least with beyond-real-world-possible martial arts moves.

It would’ve been so much more effective (in the sense of adaptating the book) to make those fights more realistic.
*
I think Snyder was really trying his best to do justice to the book, but this is an aspect he either didn’t understand, or (and I suspect that this is the case) when it comes to stylised visuals, he just can’t help himself. It’s the only alphabet he knows how to use.

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

lorcan_nagle wrote:

The Day Shall Come

I really want to try and catch this before it leaves cinemas.

Christian wrote:

I saw this yesterday:

Based on Picketty’s book. It shows the way capital and society have developed from the 18th to the 21st century, and makes an argument that we have been sliding backwards. It makes its argument well, but personally, I would’ve liked it to be a bit denser on information and rely less on pure imagery.

Holy shit. I’ve been reading bits of Capital for a while now as a Sunday ritual.

I … don’t understand how it can be a movie.

[Jon]

Christian wrote:

You make a good argument, but in the end the psychological angle (which I can see) is less important than the effect on the audience: for the audience, what you’re seeing are superhuman movie fights, like you know from Matrix etc. It’s people with superhuman abilities, and at the very least with beyond-real-world-possible martial arts moves.

It would’ve been so much more effective (in the sense of adaptating the book) to make those fights more realistic.
*
I think Snyder was really trying his best to do justice to the book, but this is an aspect he either didn’t understand, or (and I suspect that this is the case) when it comes to stylised visuals, he just can’t help himself. It’s the only alphabet he knows how to use.

Well yes, as I said, Snyder’s quite blunt, specially with action scenes… But what Dan and Laurie do in the GN isn’t that far removed from what they do in the movie… unless you think it’s realistic a retired middle aged woman would be able to break an arm by using both her elbow and knee like this (or Dan’s two finger fatal blow in the next panel):

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

[Christian]

Jon wrote:

Well yes, as I said, Snyder’s quite blunt, specially with action scenes… But what Dan and Laurie do in the GN isn’t that far removed from what they do in the movie… unless you think it’s realistic a retired middle aged woman would be able to break an arm by using both her elbow and knee like this (or Dan’s two finger fatal blow in the next panel):

That’s the thing though. Superhero fights in comics back then were depicted differently: all fist-punches to the chin and kicks and wrestling. Whereas anybody who’s been even briefly taught any kind of self-defence knows you use your knees and elbows, too, and you go for the soft parts of the opponents for maximum damage. That’s what those pages showed. Rorschach fights the same way, too – direct and efficient. Whereas everything about the fights in the movie was flashy and show-offy, which is the complete opposite of the book’s approach. The fights in Watchmen should’ve looked the way the fights in Greengrass’ Bourne movies do – direct, efficient, ugly. Not something that you revel in the aesthetics of like Snyder does.

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

Anonymous wrote:

Holy shit. I’ve been reading bits of Capital for a while now as a Sunday ritual.

I … don’t understand how it can be a movie.

It’s not a direct translation of the book by any means. It makes the same argument (I think, just having read about the book but not the thing itself), and it uses a lot of material from other films or actual historical film material to illustrate it. There are also interviews not just with Piketty, but also with other economists etc.

I suspect it is a very light version of the argument, one without a lot of the data Piketty surely uses in the book to support his case.

One day I hope somebody makes a Terminator movie that takes its cues solely from the first film and plays it as a straight up horror movie with robots. Don’t get caught up in the sci fi time travel bullshit or blow everything on action that we’ve all seen already. Focus on the absolute unstoppable terror of the situation rather than the backstory.

I know where you’re coming from, but I can’t imagine doing that take on it any better than the original Terminator.

Of course, it’s hard to imagine them topping T2 in the action stakes, so it’s maybe a bit odd that they keep trying.

Although as I said, this latest one was a pretty good attempt.

The fights in Watchmen should’ve looked the way the fights in Greengrass’ Bourne movies do

Now you’ve reminded me that Greemgrass tried to make a Watchmen movie. What an interesting thing that would have been to see.

saga wrote:

One day I hope somebody makes a Terminator movie that takes its cues solely from the first film and plays it as a straight up horror movie with robots. Don’t get caught up in the sci fi time travel bullshit or blow everything on action that we’ve all seen already. Focus on the absolute unstoppable terror of the situation rather than the backstory.

I think this is my cue.

So basically, it was BOB.

RonnieM wrote:

I think this is my cue.

Without spoiling anything, I think you might smile and think of this during a scene in Dark Fate.

Genndy Tartakovsky’s Primal

This is such a fantastic series. The story and animation is emotional and visceral. It is funny, heartbreaking, and unflinchingly brutal. There is no dialogue and it doesn’t need it.

This is New Golden Age television at its finest.

Anyone watching Bojack Horseman?

I think it’s fantastically clever

That’s next on the watch list.

Seven Worlds, One Planet, the new David Attenborough-led natural world documentary series on BBC One, is as good as you’d expect. Some stunning photography, a couple of unflinchingly brutal scenes and some pertinent messages about climate change too.

And as ever, the making-of segment at the end has some of the best stuff in it.

I’m a huge fan of writer Tana French’s series of books about the Dublin Murder Squad, so I’m very excited about the upcoming Starz series DUBLIN MURDERS debuting two weeks from today. It will be eight episodes based on the first two novels, which means there won’t be a lot of filler.

Watching The Dark Knight for the umpteenth time. Each time, I like the Rachel Dawes character less and less.

Genndy Tartakovsky’s Primal

As soon as this comes out in the UK I’m going to be all over it. I’m surprised that it has been submitted to the Academy Awards under the Best Animated Film category. I don’t know if that’s just all ten episodes (the second half is due to be released next year) stitched together, or is it just this first five?

Jon wrote:

they’re not REALLY doing superhuman stuff, yes, they’re punching and kicking SUPER hard, but not on a super human level

The speed at which they move, including a largely untrained, unfit slob like Nite Owl, and the damage they take is what throws me. In the final fight scene I can’t recall who but either Ozy, Nite Owl or Rorschach gets kicked clean across a room and smashes into a concrete pillar (which maybe chips and cracks?) – they get up shortly after. A normal human would be severely injured, several broken bones, in incredible pain, perhaps even dead.

One of the worst parts of the movie was that Dan (and maybe others?) refers to the team as “Watchmen”. *Cringe*

Andrew wrote:

The speed at which they move, including a largely untrained, unfit slob like Nite Owl, and the damage they take is what throws me. In the final fight scene I can’t recall who but either Ozy, Nite Owl or Rorschach gets kicked clean across a room and smashes into a concrete pillar (which maybe chips and cracks?) – they get up shortly after. A normal human would be severely injured, several broken bones, in incredible pain, perhaps even dead.

It did feel like THE MATRIX. It also somewhat lessens the effect when Adrian catches the bullet. After seeing Blake punch through a wall at the beginning, a bullet catch isn’t so impressive.

Also, that fight pretty much gives away the killer. Who else could it be? For people who hadn’t read the book before seeing the movie, many told me they thought they all had superpowers.

Despite its flaws, I don’t hate the Watchmen film – I have the DVD and think there’s a lot good to it – it looks faithful a lot of the time. Jon’s flashback origin is done pretty well. Morgan makes a good Comedian. Rorschach is portrayed very well. And some single scenes are really quite great.

I just think the comic deserved better.

I’ll even forgive the change to the ending because even though it makes less sense for Jon to be the Armageddon-level threat that unites the world, there’s not enough time in a single film to properly set up the telepathic squid alien.

(Oh, and the actor who played Laurie was really weak.)

Any excuse:

njerry wrote:

I’m a huge fan of writer Tana French’s series of books about the Dublin Murder Squad, so I’m very excited about the upcoming Starz series DUBLIN MURDERS debuting two weeks from today. It will be eight episodes based on the first two novels, which means there won’t be a lot of filler.

It’s four episodes in here, and is good so far. The pacing on it is slightly odd though, because rather than adapt the first book and then the second, they’ve been doing them both at once, sort of. The start of the second book is at the end of the third episode, while the first book is still ongoing.

Andrew wrote:

I’ll even forgive the change to the ending because even though it makes less sense for Jon to be the Armageddon-level threat that unites the world,

 
It totally makes sense, specially since the story already set it up with the frame job of making Jon go crazy on TV… and it’s not like he did a good job on the interview anyway, coming off as completely emotionless and empathyless like he doesn’t give a shit about what happens to the human race (and he really doesn’t).

[Jon]

Anyways… watched Hobbs & Shaw… it was honestly just plain better than the F&F movies… for me at least… The Rock & Statham have more charisma that the whole F&F cast combined, so that helps… plus they just dropped all pretense and went crazy with the plot, and it works… It’s a really fun action/comedy movie BUT without all the F&F cringe, so that’s a win.
 
I’m totally on board for more of them, specially if they bring Heart & Reynolds in for the sequel, that’s a pretty good cast right there, definetly more appealing than Vin Diesel and the rest of the whatstheirfaces in the F&F movies.

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

Andrew wrote:

Jon wrote:

they’re not REALLY doing superhuman stuff, yes, they’re punching and kicking SUPER hard, but not on a super human level

The speed at which they move, including a largely untrained, unfit slob like Nite Owl, and the damage they take is what throws me. In the final fight scene I can’t recall who but either Ozy, Nite Owl or Rorschach gets kicked clean across a room and smashes into a concrete pillar (which maybe chips and cracks?) – they get up shortly after. A normal human would be severely injured, several broken bones, in incredible pain, perhaps even dead.

This isn’t unique to Watchmen, though, it’s part of a general trend in escalating levels of “human” feats in modern action films. The Rock or Statham or Vin Diesel will leap 20 metres, or fall 40 metres and stand up again, or kick a man clean across the room all while playing “normal” characters in a non-super-hero movie.
.
When Indiana Jones or John McClane did a stunt, you could feel it hurt them. It was real. That level of stunt is about as taxing as crossing the road to a modern action hero.
.
It’s just really stupid. Give me Indy or McClane suffering for their heroics any day.

I’m actually with Jon here. I think Snyder kept a lot of the Watchmen film very close to the book but used a lot of things like costuming and the way the action played out that had to change anyway as a way to comment on current superhero films the way the original comic commented on current superhero comics.
.
I think the issue comes in that the superhero film genre wasn’t as mature as it is now. So it might have benefited the film to wait just a few years.
.
I’m also not as reverent to the original book as some.

KandorLives wrote:

Genndy Tartakovsky’s Primal

As soon as this comes out in the UK I’m going to be all over it. I’m surprised that it has been submitted to the Academy Awards under the Best Animated Film category. I don’t know if that’s just all ten episodes (the second half is due to be released next year) stitched together, or is it just this first five?

They have only aired the first five so far.

It is really good.

Based on the strength of this interview I’m tempted to check out Samurai Jack and see if there’s more to it than being a Saturday morning version of Frank Miller’s Ronin.

https://www.polygon.com/platform/amp/2019/10/7/20902728/genndy-tartakovsky-primal-adult-swim-star-wars-samurai-jack-interview

DavidM wrote:

This isn’t unique to Watchmen, though, it’s part of a general trend in escalating levels of “human” feats in modern action films. The Rock or Statham or Vin Diesel will leap 20 metres, or fall 40 metres and stand up again, or kick a man clean across the room all while playing “normal” characters in a non-super-hero movie.

Quite. However, in those movies it doesn’t go against one of the main point that the story is actually trying to make.

Just finished the third and final series of Detectorists. What a lovely show this is. Gentle humour and loveable characters, perfectly played, and who end up being quite affecting and sympathetic by the end. And a beautiful celebration of the English countryside and of history in general.

I wish there was more,but it also felt like the right place to end.

The Laundromat (on Netflix).

It’s pretty interesting – it breaks down the panama papers stuff in fairly accessible terms (and serendipitous to my earlier posts on corporate shells).

I’m maybe half way through. I’m enjoying so far.

Anonymous wrote:

The Laundromat (on Netflix).

It’s pretty interesting – it breaks down the panama papers stuff in fairly accessible terms (and serendipitous to my earlier posts on corporate shells).

I’m maybe half way through. I’m enjoying so far.

Yeah, I’m planning on watching that one soon.

Saw Happy Death Day yesterday. It was… okay. I was a bit disappointed it was PG-13 and there was no gore, and it was all a bit obvious and the actors were barely okay. This was probably the first Blumhouse movie I saw (I don’t think Get Out and Split really count as such), and I don’t know. It’s all a bit too slick to have B-movie charm, but it’s also clearly not as good as properly produced movies and TV, so… I mean, I like Groundhog Day movies, and it’s a nice idea to mix that with a slasher thing, and it was entertaining enough as long as I also had my phone to fiddle with. But that’s about it.
*
Also, I noticed the screenplay was written by Scott Lobdell. That was a bit of a surprise. As was googling him for a bit and finding that he has become a somewhat controversial figure in comics. Seems like he’s getting more screenwriting gigs now, on the “strength” of Happ Death Day. I mean, it wasn’t a terrible screenplay, but like the rest of the movie, it wasn’t exactly special, either. Ah well.

Interesting, his Twitter exchange with Ron Marz is clearly water under the bridge for both of them;
.
https://www.newsarama.com/8155-ron-marz-scott-lobdell-on-racism-politics-social-media.html
.
But the Starfire story and sexual harassment stuff makes him sound like a caveman who needs some sensitivity training.

Tried watching Wounds, an Armie Hammer, Zazie Beetz, and Dakota Johnson-starring horror movie on Hulu. Hammer plays a bartender who takes home a phone left at his bar and starts receiving ominous text messages and images. That’s as far as I got, the opening scene set at the bar is terrible. Aims for folksy charm but ends up idiotic and fake. Maybe it gets better but the messages, which begin in the next scene, didn’t hook me enough to stick with it.

From the director of Under the Shadow, which was highly praised, but I’ve only heard not great things about this one. It’s a shame because I was looking forward to it based on the cast alone.

I like Soderbergh usually, but I thought The Laundromat was a confused mess. There’s a few decent scenes, but not many.

I’m not sure if it’s Soderbergh trying to do an Adam McKay-style Big Short/Vice-type movie with big cameos, lots of talking to camera, etc, or if it’s him trying to parody that, but it doesn’t work either way.

The reveal of the second Meryl Streep character was especially awful, and it’s incredibly obvious it’s her from when she first shows up with the over-the-top prosthetics and incredibly cringe-y accent.

_

I’m rewatching all the Scream movies, and I’d forgotten just how awful Scream 3 is. Neve Campbell is barely in the first hour, and when she finally shows up, she hardly ever interacts with the rest of the cast. And I don’t blame her, because all of the new characters are terrible, and not even in a way where it’s fun to watch them being killed. The ending reveal is incredibly dumb, and doesn’t land at all.

Scream 2 is better than I remember, but I’d forgotten that there were two separate “jokes” about Courtney Cox being in Friends, where it’s said David Schwimmer plays Dewey in Stab, and a very weird line about how naked photos of Gail are actually just her head on Jennifer Aniston’s body.

Kind of amazing that Lobdell wrote X-Men but clearly none of the experience had any impact on him.

I see that.

The narrative throughout wasn’t great, and I don’t think Streep was really a reveal, but a gimmick. Unless you already know about Odebrecht, it comes out of nowhere- but the point being Mosack and Fonseca were au fait with those clients.

I mostly liked if for Oldman and Banderas, and the corporate law stuff.

I didn’t care for Oldman and Banderas. I’d just seen Banderas in Almodovar’s Pain and Glory, which he’s much, much better in.

The David Schwimmer bits were good.

Awww

I didn’t like those bits.

I don’t know how we reconcile this Paul!