What movies and TV shows are you watching?
What're you watching?
- This topic has 1,006 replies, 37 voices, and was last updated 4 years, 9 months ago by
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Underwater…. where to start…?
Ok, so, the obvious question; good or not?
Not.
Good points despite that;
The cast all step up, even if some of the casting is a bit obvious. It’s not a film that asks actors to step outside their comfort zone, but no-one phone it in.
It looks expensive. Good hardware (diving suits, the underwater buildings, etc.) and some creature stuff is done well.
The bad points;
It’s hard to follow what’s going on? The film credits three editors and feels like it’s been chopped around a LOT. It’s ‘Alien’ crossed with ‘The Abyss’ but seems unsure exactly how those films worked?
Good or bad?
Well some batshit crazy stuff happens, so that might float your boat?
It’s a dumb film unfortunately, and you never get into either the personal stories or the bigger What The Fuck Is Going On?
The movie it reminded me of the most though, was ‘The Cloverfield Paradox’. It could easily have been sold off and rebranded as a Cloverfield movie.
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Bojack Horseman made me have emotions.
Same – to the extent that I can’t watch it; it’s too dark, too real. Wife loved it though, and is sad to see it go.
We finished The Good Place, plowing through the last four episodes in one sitting – it was satisfying and quite touching. Not really laugh out loud but I don’t think it ever was. It was more a clever comfort than a comedy to me.
We also watched Parasite on Sunday as it was available for free on our internet TV service thing – I… I thought it was okay – I’m baffled at the way it’s become a phenomenon, and the Oscar (though I haven’t seen any of the other nominees bar Little Women, which was probably as good if not a little better).
I’m fine with subs, really, but the approach by our local multicultural channel SBS really needs to be adopted globally – they have the subs in a particular shade of yellow that rarely fades into what’s onscreen. Parasite’s white subs disappeared in certain scenes (bright lighting, people holding up sheets of paper, etc); poor effort.
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I’ve been looking for a new comedy to watch and stumbled across Norsmen on Netflix. I looked up some reviews and this is the one that convinced me to check it out:
The is what happens when Scandinavians think too highly of themselves. It’s a dark comedy that isn’t even funny. The actors are too pretty, botox’d and plasticified – it’s pretty much an ego trip. Perhaps it was 1200 years ago that the Viking scum invaded the Island, which is now known as the United Kingdom, but it’s still fresh in my mind. Since when is it funny to joke about rape, murdering innocents, taking slaves and stealing a kingdoms food, crafts, goods and precious items. Karma is beach, so they say, and Scandinavians will eventually get theirs – from what I see, it’s pretty much happening already to their country with uncontrolled immigration … Now the rapers become the raped. Not a funny show, just arrogant and ugly. King Alfred was a close ancestor of mine and his wish of a United Kingdom happened, generations of my ancestors went through hell at the hands of the so called ‘North Men’ or as they are more commonly known as pagan scum ! Vikings are not cool, and Scandinavians will get the Karma they deserve – it’s 1200 years late, but it’s coming. I’m a mix of Irish, Caledonian and Saxon (English, Scottish and Irish) …we don’t forget.
Anything that provokes that kind of reaction is worth looking into!
The first episode was pretty good, I’m giving the second a look today…
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Just caught the movie adaptation of Fantasy Island….and I have very mixed feelings about it.
To try and put it short, there were multiple moments when I was watching it that I thought “If this was 30% less wannabe horror, and 20% more drama, then it might actually have something here”. Because….there was/is potential in this movie. Character and emotional beats that feel like they are a bit more introspective or reflective and maybe could have carried a movie that was interested in actual character depth and progression.
Of course, the very next scene after those beats we’d get dragged back into a dull, generic, rip-off SAW, Wish Upon, Zombie mish-mash plot that plays all of its cliches in the least dynamic, most tired, ways possible. It was like whiplash. Just kept see-sawing back and forth between the two moods and atmospheres. And it’s a shame. Because there was meat there. Until the last 15 minutes where it devolves into a goofy Scooby-Doo mystery plot that even Hanna-Barbera would be ashamed about…..and yet, even then, the last 2 minutes of that whip right back again.
It’s a mess. It’s a chaotic amalgamation of two separate ideas and directions with where to take this movie and this property. And neither won out. But, if it had leaned more into the character focused drama, and tried to hit hard with these characters, then it might have been a respectable mess. I’m surprised at how much there was to enjoy, but not enough to say I liked it.
Overall: 4/10
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Couple more watches on Criterion:
Ugetsu – Another Japanese period drama with a supernatural twist, this story follows two peasant farmers with high ambitions (one to become a wealthy potter, the other a famous samurai) who abandon their wives in a time of civil war. The wannabe samurai, who’s basically the village idiot, gets what he wants through dumb luck only for his wife to be forced into prostitution, while the potter is seduced by the ghost of a dead noblewoman who takes a liking to his pottery. As he romances the ghost, his wife and son are forced to flee the raging war. In the hands of lesser filmmakers this might have ended up as a simplistic morality play but the film’s attention to the plights of the women left behind and the men’s fragility paired with its elegant portrayal of the supernatural make it transcend simple right and wrong. And it has a fantastic ending, equal parts haunting, tragic, and hopeful.
The Juniper Tree – Bjork’s first film, filmed in 1986 when she was 21 but not released until 1990. This feels like a lost Ingmar Bergman film from the 50s and 60s; the black-and-white and Scandinavian setting helps. Two Icelandic sisters, the younger played by Bjork, flee their village after their mother is burned at the stake for practicing witchcraft. The older sister casts a love spell on a widower farmer with a young son so that she and Bjork can be have a home. Meanwhile, the farmer’s son is suspicious of his new mother and Bjork experiences strange visions of her dead mother, birds, and heavenly skies. It’s beautifully shot, well-acted, and the supernatural elements are appropriately weird and alluring but the story was too sparse for me. It’s only 80 minutes and it probably deserved to be 100 to have a fuller emotional impact. But I’m glad I watched it and recommend it if you’re into this kind of movie.
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Strange, I’ve now read it’s wiki page and I still can’t see any similarity in the summary there, though it does cite the Grimm influence.
It does sound like a film worth watching though, and I’d never even heard of it before so thanks.
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Yesterday we watched the first three episodes of a 7-episode Netflix series from a couple years back, Godless starring Jeff Daniels, Michelle Dockery, and Merrit Wever, that takes place in New Mexico in 1881. The series was created by Scott Frank, a screenwriter responsible for some great films including Out of Sight, Minority Report, and Logan. I know I’m a bit late, but I highly recommend this series; well-written and -directed, with amazing performances (Daniels and Wever both won Emmys for their roles), fleshed-out characters, and beautiful scenery and sets. So glad I found it, and can’t wait to watch the remaining episodes.
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Memories of Murder.
With ‘Parasite’ winning at the Oscar, the London art house circuit is bringing back some of Bong’s previous films.
It’s good, but it lacks the focus of ‘Parasite’. Loosely based on a real life serial murder case you could easily describe it as a cop movie where two mismatched detectives (one from a small town and the other from a big city) have to team up despite their initial antagonism in order to catch a killer before he strikes again.
But while that’s the plot, it’s not really the film. It’s very much grounded in South Korea, and the local politics are woven into the movie as plot and character. This isn’t the way an American film would tell this story. It’s not unlike ‘Zodiac’ in some ways, but it more obscure and mixes tone and genre more than Fincher does. There’s a lot of humour, even slapstick, in this film.
I don’t want to say to much, I liked it and I enjoyed seeing it with an audience.
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Memories of Murder is great, I can’t decide whether I like it more than Parasite. It’s quite like Zodiac conceptually, which Bong Joon-ho pointed out on the awards circuit, as Memories came out first. I don’t think he meant it as a dig, though. The films are very different in how they approach the subject matter, as you say.
A couple recent watches:
Alphaville – This was my first Godard movie and I liked it a lot. It’s basically 1984 as a surreal art film. A secret agent, Lemmy Caution, infiltrates Alphaville, a futuristic, computer-governed totalitarian city that is threatening other planets in an intergalactic alliance. Only it’s filmed in Paris of the 1960s and there is very little futuristic technology. Caution drives a Ford Galaxie, uses an ordinary semiautomatic pistol, dresses like a 1940s gumshoe. It works, though, because the film is largely set in modernist buildings that in 1965 looked very futuristic, and honestly still do.
Caution’s mission is to destroy the city’s ruling computer, Alpha 60, which speaks to him and the other occupants of the city out of omnipresent speakers and radios, philosophizing about the uselessness of man and how language creates reality. Dictionaries are constantly revised in Alphaville, the meanings of some words changed while others, like “conscience,” are deleted entirely. Violence and meaningless sex are commonplace, to the point where a hotel concierge/prostitute barely reacts when Caution kills an attacker in his hotel room. Later, political prisoners, some of whom have merely committed the crime of crying, are publicly executed as their fellow citizens look on dispassionately.
Caution falls in love with the daughter of Alpha 60’s creator (it happens quickly, which is perfectly understandable as she’s played by Anna Karina) and through that love tries to prove the essence of humanity to the computer. At heart, Alphaville is about humanity’s highest attributes–our capacity to love and care about other people–versus despair, fascism, and senseless violence. Simple themes, and common ones in dystopian fiction, but executed as well as they’ve ever been.
Motherless Brooklyn – I feel like I owe Ed Norton a personal apology for not trying harder to see this in theaters. Ignore the reviews, this movie’s great, up there with classic noirs like Chinatown, Sweet Smell of Success, and In a Lonely Place. It’s long, which seems to be the main sticking point with critics, but I didn’t feel the runtime, and honestly 2 hours 17 minutes is not that big of a deal. It’s not like it’s The Irishman.
Norton directs the movie and plays Lionel Essrog, a PI in 1950s New York with Tourette syndrome on the trail of the men who killed his boss, mentor, and father figure Frank Minna (Bruce Willis). He uncovers a plot by city planner Mo Randolph (based on Robert Moses and played by Alec Baldwin) to tear down black neighborhoods to make way for wealthy whites, and along the way falls for an imperiled black housing activist played by the fantastic and jaw-droppingly gorgeous Gugu Mbatha-Raw. Rounding out the terrific cast are Willem Dafoe, Bobby Cannavale, Cherry Jones, Leslie Mann, Ethan Suplee, and two actors from The Wire: Michael K. Williams (Omar) and Robert Wisdom (Bunny Colvin). Williams in particular shines, as he always does. Everyone is on top form, none more so than Norton himself, and there are multiple sequences where I was on the edge of my seat. There are two great chase sequences in this movie: a car chase at the beginning and one up a crumbling fire escape near the end. It’s also disarmingly romantic and moving in places.
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Well turns out the movie I was confusing Parasite with (the Host) is also a Bong movie… xD
So now I can brag about knowing Bong before he got famous I guess…
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A very belated post as this was watched last weekend:
Horrible Histories: Rotten Romans
The books are brilliant, the TV version is damn good so no surprise that this was a whole lot of fun. It wasn’t hurt by a good amount of star power casting too – Kim Cattrall as Nero’s mum; Derek Jacobi, playing Claudius for laughs which makes for a neat meta joke for some of the adults, Rupert Graves turns up as the vain Paulinus, a Roman general, while Lee Mack steals the movie every time he’s on-screen as a homesick Roman centurion, Nick Frost is playing a Celtic chief.
Rendering the final battle of Boudicca’s rebellion as a dance-off allows them to deploy lines like:
The battle of Watling St – we’re heading for defeat
I got 99 problems, but the Brits ain’t one!
It also keeps the material suitable for all-ages.
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So, I watched Hunters… the amazon prime show about nazi hunters… right… I’m not sure what to say about it, so I’d be curious to read anyone else’s opinions about it… so if anyone watches it, now you know… The one thing I can say is that I knew it was a bad idea to watch it all, but I still wanted to see how it would end. I really don’t know what to make of it, it feels either like some really blatant jewish propaganda or a very incompetent show that was trying to do and say something, but it’s so badly made that it just kept tripping over itself. The “plot-twist” in the last episode is so mindboggingly idiotic and badly executed, that I can’t even figure out what could’ve possibly be the intention.
So, in short I have no idea what the fuck I just watched, but I really wish I hadn’t…
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So, I watched Hunters… the amazon prime show about nazi hunters… right… I’m not sure what to say about it, so I’d be curious to read anyone else’s opinions about it… so if anyone watches it, now you know… The one thing I can say is that I knew it was a bad idea to watch it all, but I still wanted to see how it would end. I really don’t know what to make of it, it feels either like some really blatant jewish propaganda or a very incompetent show that was trying to do and say something, but it’s so badly made that it just kept tripping over itself. The “plot-twist” in the last episode is so mindboggingly idiotic and badly executed, that I can’t even figure out what could’ve possibly be the intention.
So, in short I have no idea what the fuck I just watched, but I really wish I hadn’t…
The show is catching some flack:
‘Hunters’ Creator Defends Fictional Depictions of Holocaust Amid Criticism From the Auschwitz Memorial -
I found Locke & Key to be way too tame & family friendly.
If you need something to watch with your 12 year old child then good for you.
It’s just not for me.1 user thanked author for this post.
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JoJo Rabbit put me in a good mood immediately and didn’t stop.
Laugh out loud multiple times and I know I will catch more of the little things on a re-watch.
It does have it’s serious moments but I honestly felt good from beginning to end.
Taika Waititi was perfect on both sides of the camera.1 user thanked author for this post.
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I watched another Godard movie last night, 1960’s Breathless, his first and probably most famous. Watching it you can imagine how it landed with as big of a splash as Mean Streets or Pulp Fiction. It’s stylish, effortlessly cool, features inventive and at the time revolutionary use of jump cuts, and has great performances by Jean-Paul Belmondo and Jean Seberg.
Ostensibly a crime story about a man on the run in Paris after killing a police officer, it’s more focused on his devil-may-care attitude and complicated romance with Seberg. Mostly it’s a movie about young people and their attitudes on love, sex, gender roles, art, authority, and life in general. Like a lot of art films that cross into genre fare, there’s much more emphasis on rambling conversations and the small moments in life that genre films often gloss over than there is on the crime plot that ties the movie together.
Overall I liked it but not as much as I expected to given its reputation. I was put off by the sexism of Belmondo’s character and the movie’s treatment of Seberg’s character, which at first seemed sensitive but in the end revealed her as flighty and self-centered. I don’t mind that she was shown to have a callous side but it seemed to confirm Belmondo’s assertion earlier in the movie that women are cowards about their true feelings. I can usually get past outdated attitudes in old movies but here it was central to the story and mean-spirited at heart.
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