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Asteroid City
I thought it was okay. It was visually impressive, as you would expect. It just didn’t connect with me. It lacked something emotionally for me. I’m glad I saw it but I doubt I’ll watch it again.
I’ve been rewatching Futurama ahead of the new season. Up to the last dozen or so episodes of the original run, at the point where every episode except one (Bend Her, the episode where Bender becomes a woman so that he can win in the Olympics) is top-tier for me.
Also, there only having been four years between the original series and the DVD movies, and it now being a decade since the Comedy Central run ended is messing with my sense of time.
I’d be interested to hear how well (or not) you think the DVD movies have aged. I remember being pretty disappointed by the first two.
Late to the party, but I’m finally watching Wednesday. Three episodes in, and I’m enjoying it. Wednesday’s character is of course perfect, and the actor 100% nails the role.
But despite how good it is, I have a fundamental objection to the premise.
What makes the Addams Family work is that they are the only point of weirdness in a completely straight, vanilla world. And it’s the clash of cultures when the normal world meets the family that makes it clever/funny. But they don’t do that in this series. Instead, Wednesday is put in a school full of vampires and werewolves and super-powered psionics. She walks in and they are like, meh. There is no culture clash to drive the drama. It’s not really the Addams Family universe. It’s more like Harry Potter with goths.
And actually, they should have just called the series “Thing”, because he’s the best character in it
It’s more like Harry Potter with goths.
Which was probably a clever way to go for the series. I mean, I hear this Harry Potter thing was kinda successful.
I’m not disagreeing though, it’s quite different from how the other Addams Family stuff worked.
It’s kinda fun that even by the standards of the supernatural crazy world this takes place in, the Addams Family stands out as the weird ones. There’s some good bits in that direction in episodes to come.
Saw Last Night in Soho.
Which didn’t quite work. It’s hard to say why it doesn’t quite come together, it’s maybe just too obvious in some ways and it doesn’t quite seem to know how much of a horror film it wants to be… it was still a good watch and an interesting homage to the London of the sixties, but I was a bit disappointed, probably just because I expect a lot from Edgar Wright’s movies.
Saw Last Night in Soho.
Which didn’t quite work. It’s hard to say why it doesn’t quite come together, it’s maybe just too obvious in some ways and it doesn’t quite seem to know how much of a horror film it wants to be… it was still a good watch and an interesting homage to the London of the sixties, but I was a bit disappointed, probably just because I expect a lot from Edgar Wright’s movies.
I LOVED the first half of that movie, but sadly it didn’t quite work, which is a shame because it could have been great.
I felt the CGI and look of the ghosts killed it, it got a bit too silly which pulled me out of the movie.
After putting so much effort into getting the costumes and sets perfect I don’t understand why Wright would go down the route of shitty effects.
Late to the party, but I’m finally watching Wednesday. Three episodes in, and I’m enjoying it. Wednesday’s character is of course perfect, and the actor 100% nails the role.
But despite how good it is, I have a fundamental objection to the premise.
What makes the Addams Family work is that they are the only point of weirdness in a completely straight, vanilla world. And it’s the clash of cultures when the normal world meets the family that makes it clever/funny. But they don’t do that in this series. Instead, Wednesday is put in a school full of vampires and werewolves and super-powered psionics. She walks in and they are like, meh. There is no culture clash to drive the drama. It’s not really the Addams Family universe. It’s more like Harry Potter with goths.
And actually, they should have just called the series “Thing”, because he’s the best character in it
Yeah I can’t disagree with any of that. It’s definitely weird to see Wednesday and the wider family seem so relatively normal in the context of all the fantastical beings at the school.
But I do think the show works in that Harry Potter way, even though it’s taking a different approach to previous adaptations.
Red Dwarf was added to the iplayer in pretty much its entirety recently (s9/Back To Earth wasn’t put up initially as it’s going to be edited into one piece – not sure if it’s up yet) so I’ve started watching through that. I’ve watched new series of Dwarf as they’ve aired since s7, but I’ve never consciously gone back to watch the previous series, just caught odd repeats on UK Gold and Dave. So it turns out there are some episodes I’ve not seen before, like the one that explains where all the other cats went.
As much as I like RD, I’ve never been as fanatical about it as some people are. I think possibly that’s an age thing – it seems that people who are about 10 years older than me (and thus about the age I was when I started watching it when season 1 started) absolutely adore it.
Rewatching hasn’t really changed my opinion yet. Series 1 is fine but a bit rough. Series 2 is better. But then there’s Series 3 which right from the off is irritating. Gone is the atmospheric original opening titles and theme, replaced by a typical “zany antics” sitcom clip montage. An opening crawl, which pointedly goes too fast to read, handwaves away the dangling plot thread from series 2 – Lister’s pregnancy – showing bizarre disdain for its audience. “Oh you cared about that, did you? Well that was stupid, cos we’re not bothering with it.” Kryten’s back, which is a good addition, but similarly the only explanation is dashed off in that crawl. He’s just there, settled in and we’re supposed to go with it. It’s as big a soft reboot as the show has when revived for Dave but for seemingly no reason other than that they couldn’t be bothered to set it up.
And then there’s the actual plot of that first episode itself, Backwards, which is just rubbish. The entire episode is built around a reverse footage gimmick mostly played for gross out humour with food, which is pretty thin. Yet it doesn’t even really make sense by its own stated rules. Kryten and Rimmer get fired from their performance job for a bar fight that hasn’t happened yet. But they’ve just done a gig anyway. Being fired would only affect their relative past, as cause and effect are reversed, so they should carry on having a career after that in their relative future. But no, they take it as their career being over and a cue to leave. I wouldn’t bother nitpicking this, given its a sitcom, except the show spends ages explaining how a backwards universe works and why, in Rimmer and Kryten’s opinion, it’s so much better. Yet it then completely contradicts everything it spells out, again showing a shocking lack of respect for itself.
Backwards is fun but makes no sense when you look at it logically.
They tried harder with the book version by Rob Grant, which has a different plot for the Backwards-world section that is a bit more thought-through, but even then there are some holes in the logic.
Backwards is fun but makes no sense when you look at it logically.
And that’s part of the problem to me – they didn’t need to worry about it making sense really. It’s just a fun silly idea. Yet they spend all this time in the episode trying to explain the logic of it which just sets themselves up to fail. An odd choice.
They tried harder with the book version by Rob Grant,
I think I’ve read that, but I’m not sure. I’ve read two Red Dwarf books, I can never remember the names of them (just a vague idea of the covers) and I continually get confused over the schism with them.
I think I’ve read that, but I’m not sure. I’ve read two Red Dwarf books, I can never remember the names of them (just a vague idea of the covers) and I continually get confused over the schism with them.
Grant and Naylor wrote two novels together – the first one is called Red Dwarf (but sometimes also called Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers because of the illustration on the cover) and the second one is called Better Than Life. Then these were both rereleased as a combined omnibus edition.
Then after the pair split, there was a bit of a delay as they worked on parallel sequels. Doug Naylor wrote Last Human and Rob Grant wrote Backwards, which came out a year later.
The first two novels are great, especially the extended intro to the first one that features a lot of pre-accident stuff and a more detailed setup for the series as a whole.
Last Human is not so good – it feels fairly rushed and sloppy, has a weird crew setup with Kochanski added to the mix, an odd plot with a psychopathic doppelganger of Lister, and generally just feels a bit off.
But Backwards is pretty good, and closer in style to the first two novels, in that it adapts certain aspects of certain episodes but also reworks them and adds a lot of interesting additional original material.
I’d be interested to hear how well (or not) you think the DVD movies have aged. I remember being pretty disappointed by the first two.
Yeah, I liked the movies more at the time, but they’re let down by the need to be “big” stories with big action setpieces in the third act, important revelations, etc. There’s lots of good moments in there, but they never really come together fully. The new alien antagonists they bring in in the first two movies are mostly just annoying too.
Watched a few episodes of Beef, which is really very good.
An opening crawl, which pointedly goes too fast to read, handwaves away the dangling plot thread from series 2 – Lister’s pregnancy – showing bizarre disdain for its audience. “Oh you cared about that, did you? Well that was stupid, cos we’re not bothering with it.”
Oh, I forgot to mention on this – they did try to write an opening episode to series III that addressed the cliffhanger, called “Dad”, which they got a fair way into before realising that the humour was either a bit sexist (and you can see some hints of things going that way in Parallel Universe, the series 2 closer) or a bit of a naff “Rimmer and Lister as co-parents” type thing. So they abandoned it as a bad job and decided to go the route of a silly fast-forwarded opening crawl to wave it all away.
Also, some of the best episode names ever. The first one is called “The Birds Don’t Sing, They Screech in Pain”, which is just fucking amazing.
Did you know that the paintings at the start of each episode are by David Choe, the actor who plays Isaac (the cousin)?
Also, I tried to watch Weird, but gave up about an hour in. It’s just a different kind of movie than I’d thought it would be – I’d expected a fictionalised biography, yes, and a comedy approach, but still a bio-pic comedy – something more like the recent Pam&Tommy series, I guess. It’s not that, it’s more like Mel Brooks (or Zucker brothers) approach to this kind of movie, so it’s just a series of jokes based on either Al’s songs or on your expectations of this kind of movie. Which could still be fine, but it just wasn’t funny, at least not to me. Just a sequence of very obvious dialogue and bad jokes. Too bad; Daniel Radliffe actually wasn’t doing badly.
The Blacklist (2-hour series finale)
Well, that’s one way to end a series that’s been on for 10 years. Im trying to avoid spoilers but I will say that some major questions raised during the run are not answered. I’ve been thinking about this and I’m okay with it because I’m not sure they would have been satisfying at this point.
The last hour was overindulgent to say the least. The end was pretty much telegraphed to a certain extent but the very end brought to mind an expression: “Putting a hat on a hat”. It means to do something unnecessary or an unnecessary addition. That’s what the end felt like and they way they did it took away the emotional impact and made it almost comical.
I still maintain the show really should have ended around Season 4, or Season 5 if they had wanted to take the time to wrap everything up in a bow. I will say I thought the show improved a lot after the got rid of Elizabeth. You could tell the writers were struggling to come up with ways to create conflict between her and Red. The show went on longer that it should have and the ending did the show no favors.
I could see a few ways they could do a revival movie or series a few years from now but honestly, it should be allowed to rest in peace.
The movie Kundun is up on youtube. It’s pretty much propaganda, but the sound and visuals are beautiful.
I still maintain the show really should have ended around Season 4, or Season 5 if they had wanted to take the time to wrap everything up in a bow. I will say I thought the show improved a lot after the got rid of Elizabeth. You could tell the writers were struggling to come up with ways to create conflict between her and Red. The show went on longer that it should have and the ending did the show no favors.
Man, I am so glad I got out of that after two seasons. Spader is always awesome, but it was already getting tedious back then and it’s mind-boggling that they’ve kept it going for so long.
The only thing I’ve watched this last week has been more Wednesday (note to tie into my argument in the other thread: created in 1938) episode 4 & 5. The parents day episode was actually emotionally affecting. The dance episode was … well, it was.
I’m still enjoying it, but still come away from each episode feeling that it’s flawed somehow.
It’s interesting how they give the impression that Wednesday is growing as a person, without every actually changing a single aspect of her character. If they do change her, like at the finale she says “I was wrong, you’re all right, I’m going to lighten up and embrace joy”, I’m going to personally go and burn down the studio that made it.
Thing is still the greatest character on the show.
I still maintain the show really should have ended around Season 4, or Season 5 if they had wanted to take the time to wrap everything up in a bow. I will say I thought the show improved a lot after the got rid of Elizabeth. You could tell the writers were struggling to come up with ways to create conflict between her and Red. The show went on longer that it should have and the ending did the show no favors.
Man, I am so glad I got out of that after two seasons. Spader is always awesome, but it was already getting tedious back then and it’s mind-boggling that they’ve kept it going for so long.
Spader was the main draw and why I kept coming back. In an epsidoe this season, Red told a story (as he always does) and you really saw and felt the emotion. It was a great scene. Honestly, I could just watch videos of Spader telling stories and it doesn’t matter if they were true or not. Red telling stories were always the best part of the show.
As to the show’s longevity, I honestly don’t think the producers thought it would last this long. I think they tought it would always on the verge of cancellation (as did most viewers!) but the financials were good for NBC (meaining it made they a profit) so they kept renewing it. But yeah, the show would have worked better had it had a definite end point. Many shows are cancelled too soon. The Blacklist is a rare example of a show cancelled too late.
Finished season 3 of What We Do in the Shadows. Fun as always!
Season 5 just premiered last week. It’s off to a great start!
So I’ve always been a Law & Order junkie ever since my mom suggested I try (she also pushed Homicide on me, others. I’ve had some success getting her to watch stuff, The Expanse had me jumping for joy. Plus she realized her ‘no swearing’ policy had her missing out on lots, so hello Deadwood and HBO…)
Love the fact it came back and it’s been good. Love the cast, love everything. Well, almost.
The ‘Law’ side and then the ‘Order’ side of the story has you noticing that we’re at about 40 minutes in an hour.
(I have cable and an extended package with East Coast ‘time shift’ channels. I’ll record them and watch the same night at a decent time fast-forwarding through the commercials. Can’t give exact time, but definitely closer to 40 minutes than 45.)
You realize we have some short halves.
Now that extended package I have has Crave (HBO Canada, plus 3 more channels that handle other American stuff and movies).
Also counts as a streaming service, and I realize they’ve got Law & Order so I get a hankering for some older stuff.
Ah, the oldest they go is season 6 (1995-96). Dammit. No Chris Noth, or Michael Moriarty.
But Season 6 is Jill Hennessy’s 3rd and final season (fellow Canadian girl and born 3 days before me which I haven’t had the chance to work into a conversation), and Benjamin Bratt’s first season. I started with season 6 (and no fast forwarding here, commercials are not here).
Very enjoyable to watch again. Season 7 has Carey Lowell’s Jamie Ross, and I forgot how much I liked her.
Season 8 is the first time they keep the same cast, but of note the psychologist they call is no longer Dr. Olivet, but now Dr. Emil Skoda played by J.K. Simmons. Very nice (and at the time it was a pleasure to see him differently from his Oz character Vernon Schillinger).
So what’s my point of all this?
All those episodes have times that I can see, and that’s 47 and a half minutes!
Even if that idiotic warning at the beginning I see takes 30 seconds (which it doesn’t) and you conclude I was just being pessimistic about the last season being 40 minute episodes and it maybe 42 minutes, well from 47 minutes to 42 is a big swing that shows up in this format. I just spent a lot of time with Lenny Briscoe, and would not like his half cut by 2.5 – 3.5 minutes. Short little 20 second, 40 second, or whatever group of scenes can deliver a lot of story. The twist, the turn, or just good dialogue.
5 – 7 minutes is a noticeable takeaway, and I’m hoping that it’s just because of the ‘pandemic’, yet I have no info on when it dropped below 47 minutes. Really should never have been allowed to drop below 45 minutes for ‘over-the-air broadcasters’.
With 2 current strikes going on and the pettiness of those involved has me knowing the next season won’t change, and probably the one after, so the hope of shaming the networks to get near a 43-44 minute episode is just a pipe dream.
Well, thankfully I can take pleasure in living in the past, and Ooh! Angie Harmon is there in seasons 9-12.
Not a bad thing at all…
Saw Venom: Let There Be Carnage. It’s pretty much the same as the first one, works well enough in the two-minds-in-one-body slapstick scenes. Woody Harrelson was a weird casting choice – I love the man, but it just feels like he’s wrong for this movie.
I kind of love the Venom sequel as it pushes the silly schlockiness of the first one even further, and Harrelson’s performance is part of that – it’s like he’s realised that something big and silly and cartoonish is needed to match Hardy, and it works. It’s a bit choppy but fun.
My son loves it (and the original Venom) – but then he also thinks Ghost Rider is one of the best superhero films ever made. I guess he’s in his ’90s Image phase.
I guess he’s in his ’90s Image phase.
You’ve gotta hope it’s only a phase.
Though to be fair, Ghost Rider has Nicholas Cage’s head catching fire, so it’s not all bad.
Rewatching Firefly with the kid.
Even after all these years, this is just such a great show. Still smarts a bit that we never got to see more of it.
Man, those people are all so young. There’s a bit in the pilot in which Mal calls himself a bitter old man, and I’m looking at him thinking, dude, are you even thirty?! (He was actually 31 at the time.)
For the first time in about 18(!) years, Sam Raimi’s first Spider-Man.
I really loved it when it first came out but then it was one of my set texts for A Level Media Studies, so became very disillusioned with it.
I will say, it’s a bit better than I remember. I wouldn’t say that necessarily means it was good though. There’s so much that just doesn’t work. The dialogue is largely crap. The opening and closing voice-over incredibly on the nose. Maguire isn’t particularly good and just looks old. Uncle Ben is really thinly written. Most of his time on screen is spent moaning about being laid off and now u employable which… I just don’t see what they were going for there. If anything it diminishes the tragedy of his death because it introduces money troubles for the family before he’s even snuffed it. He also seems really unsurprised that Peter, his hitherto nerdy nephew, beat up a guy at school. I just don’t particularly buy their relationship. The wrestling scene has no place in a story written after about 1992 – it was post Attitude Era WWF, we all knew pro wrestling is choreographed. Having an open invitational thing to get beaten up by a pro wrestler feels straight out of a 60s comic in all the worst ways. And then there’s that bridge scene, where the New Yorkers heckle the Goblin, though it wasn’t quite as cringeworthy as I remember.
But there are good elements. First and foremost JK Simmons as Jameson. All the writers’ attention seemed to go on him and it paid off. They get not just the bluster and attitude but almost that moment when the Goblin demands the name of the photographer and Jameson lies to protect him. This not only shows some backbone to Jameson but also that he’s not even crediting Peter. He’s got a messed up value system and I love it.
Dafoe is good but I don’t think he’s as great as people say (I was surprised how much of his face I could see behind the mask – I suspect because I was watching in HD for the first time. I don’t think all of it was intentional either). He’s better in No Way Home. Aunt May is a strong character here while MJ isn’t written particularly faithfully to the comics character but I think Dunst does well with what she has. I don’t understand the hate she got for this.
Ultimately, the weirdest thing about this film now is the tone. Not necessarily that it’s so cheesy, which it is, but that it’s so earnest. Spidey makes very few jokes here and none of them are good. That feels dated, compared to the quippy tone of most superhero movies now. The whole thing goes more for gravitas and sentiment than fun and that feels wrong for Spider-Man (however much he has had dramatic stories over the years). I think that’s a symptom of the film still feeling like it has to prove both the character and superhero movies generally as proper viable movie material for the mainstream. It’s so afraid of being mocked and belittled by a presumed hostile audience it robs itself of most of its joy. That opening narration is key to that, it practically says straight up “look, we’re not here to have fun, this is a serious story, ok?” I’m glad the genre’s moved past that.
Funnily enough I feel the opposite – that earnestness and heart is part of what is missing from a lot of superhero movies these days. (The Flash tried to go for it with its storyline about Barry’s mum, but it ended up buried/sidelined by everything else that was going on in that movie.)
I’d much rather a film try and give you a sincere and heartfelt story than all the cookie-cutter Whedonesque one-liners that actively undermine the drama and tension in so many superhero movies these days. It’s a formula that was once novel for pushing back against the clichés of superhero movies, but has now become a bit stale and cliché itself (see the whole “so, that just happened” meme), and rewatching the Raimi Spidey movies you see how much heart can be put into these films when they aren’t constantly packed with self-conscious humour.
In particular I think Rosemary Harris as Aunt May is just fantastic, in all three of those movies she has scenes and monologues that are really powerful and moving, without the movie feeling like it has to puncture the moment with a gag.
There’s a real classic feel to the Raimi Spidey movies that I think is going to help them stand the test of time better than a lot of other superhero stuff from the last couple of decades.
But there are good elements. First and foremost JK Simmons as Jameson. All the writers’ attention seemed to go on him and it paid off. They get not just the bluster and attitude but almost that moment when the Goblin demands the name of the photographer and Jameson lies to protect him. This not only shows some backbone to Jameson but also that he’s not even crediting Peter. He’s got a messed up value system and I love it.
Yeah, I love that little moment for JJJ. It showed that they understood the character beyond the obvious blustery crowd-pleasing stuff.
I’d much rather a film try and give you a sincere and heartfelt story than all the cookie-cutter Whedonesque one-liners that actively undermine the drama and tension in so many superhero movies these days
The modern quippiness definitely has its downsides and can be done badly. But it’s still entirely possible to do a serious and/or heartfelt story with (despite?) that, as shown by, say, Guardians, Winter Soldier, No Way Home. Spider-Man isn’t necessarily grim, but it’s very po-faced and doesn’t seem able to just relax a bit and have fun with itself. Even those JJJ scenes, you’ve got Peter being very uptight and serious in them. There’s none of that classic dynamic of Peter needling Jameson for his own amusement. You’ve got Jameson being, no doubt amusing to audience, but Peter, as the centre of the film, being affronted by it almost. It’s quite odd.
I guess they get into that a bit more in the second movie, with Spidey stealing his costume back from JJJ and leaving a cheeky note.
Having seen some of the deleted scenes, they obviously considered pushing things even further with the comedy of JJJ, but it’s probably for the best that they didn’t.
I do think though that even at the time there was a bit of a sense that Spidey wasn’t his usual quippy self when fighting the baddies. And unfortunately the one memorable example from the first movie is the wrestling scene where he makes a “huh-huh, you’re gay” joke, which always feels like a bit of a clanger.
Yeah I think there are issues with the Spidey adaptations. The Maguire run does lack the banter of the comic when he’s in costume, he’s a lot better nerdy Peter than he is Spidey.
The next round tried to address that with Garflield, doing a bit less Ditko and more Romita but in a few places just came across as a dick and a bully. Then it gets really dark as everyone dies, it should be noted there was in the comics a ten year or so gap between Ben and Gwen. Piling it into two films is quite grim and depressing and suggests he’d be better off not bothering.
The Tom Holland version has the best balance. I really like Spider-Man 2 with Maguire but don’t really share the view from many that it is some perfect superhero film. I like a lot of them more if I’m honest.
I’m going to carry onto to Spider-Man 2 soon, which I think I’ve only seen once (when it first came out on DVD) and then also Spider-Man 3, which I’ve never seen. Probably won’t bother with the Garfield ones.
Oh and then the extended cut of No Way Home, which is on Sky Anytime. Curious to see what that adds and if it’s worth it.
I’m going to carry onto to Spider-Man 2 soon, which I think I’ve only seen once (when it first came out on DVD) and then also Spider-Man 3, which I’ve never seen. Probably won’t bother with the Garfield ones.
I love Spidey 2 and think the third one is better than its reputation suggests. Be interested to hear what you think.
Oh and then the extended cut of No Way Home, which is on Sky Anytime. Curious to see what that adds and if it’s worth it.
I won’t spoil any of the changes but there aren’t that many big additions, the majority of it is just small moments here and there. Some of it is good stuff though.
I watched the first couple of episodes of Good Omens season two. Having been concerned that the show might falter without a book to base its second season on, I’m actually really enjoying it so far.
A lot of that is down to the chemistry between Tennant and Sheen, which carries it all even (especially?) when things get silly and pantomimey, which happens quite a bit.
But I’m also really enjoying having John Finnemore on board as co-writer. I love his radio work, particularly his Souvenir Programme sketch show (as well as Cabin Pressure) and the script this season shows off his knack for smart, funny, inventive comedy, particularly the long flashbacks in episode two involving a famous bible story.
Hopefully it continues at this level.
So yesterday I watched Captain America: The First Avenger. I really hadn’t planned on it but it was on TV so I figured I’d watch a little bit of it. I ended up watching it all the way through. I hadn’t watched it in over ten years.
I had forgotten how good it was.
I also forgot how violent it was!
The story works and the emotional beats really connect. While there are a few quips, they don’t feel tacked on or distruptive to the dialogue. Overall, this movie is serious. It was a superhero/sci fi movie but it really didn’t go over the top. It was fairly grounded. It really stands in stark contrast to the Marvel products of late.
If you haven’t given it a watch in awhile, give it a go. I am pleasantly surprised at how well it hold up.
So yesterday I watched Captain America: The First Avenger.
FX channel, right? We watched Iron Man 1 and Thor 1, but I bailed on Captain America to switch to the news.
So yesterday I watched Captain America: The First Avenger.
FX channel, right? We watched Iron Man 1 and Thor 1, but I bailed on Captain America to switch to the news.
Yep. I made the conscious decision to not watch Captain Marvel as I needed to help Christel with some housework.
In the deep dark hills of eastern Kentucky
That’s the place where I trace my bloodline
And it’s there I read on a hillside gravestone
“You’ll never leave Harlan alive”.
The ending of Justified worked really well. Just about everyone who deserved to die did so, well, almost. It also had an ability to make you care about characters you shouldn’t, like Wynn Duffy.
I also really liked Raylan’s line about expecting to be congratulated for not doing stuff that shouldn’t be done anyway. Certainly not the first great one-liner, may have claim to be one of the last and Art got a good few of them.
Resolution series spoilers:
It was very sarisfying seeing the likes of Hale, Markham and that creepy little bastard Boon get what was coming to them. The final resolutions between Raylan, Boyd and Ava worked well too. The only real weak link in the final episodes was Raylan’s going rogue and Vasquez going off the deep end while thinking with his nuts.
Funnily enough I feel the opposite – that earnestness and heart is part of what is missing from a lot of superhero movies these days. (The Flash tried to go for it with its storyline about Barry’s mum, but it ended up buried/sidelined by everything else that was going on in that movie.)
I’d much rather a film try and give you a sincere and heartfelt story than all the cookie-cutter Whedonesque one-liners that actively undermine the drama and tension in so many superhero movies these days. It’s a formula that was once novel for pushing back against the clichés of superhero movies, but has now become a bit stale and cliché itself (see the whole “so, that just happened” meme), and rewatching the Raimi Spidey movies you see how much heart can be put into these films when they aren’t constantly packed with self-conscious humour.
In particular I think Rosemary Harris as Aunt May is just fantastic, in all three of those movies she has scenes and monologues that are really powerful and moving, without the movie feeling like it has to puncture the moment with a gag.
There’s a real classic feel to the Raimi Spidey movies that I think is going to help them stand the test of time better than a lot of other superhero stuff from the last couple of decades.
Yeah same. Riami’s first two SpiderMan movies are way up the towards the top of the list of superhero movies for me, with spider-man 2 at the very top.
I must have watched the first one a dozen times now. Pretty much comic book movie bliss.
Took my son to the new TMNT movie. I thought it was fun, a nice take on the idea that skews pretty young but has plenty of humour and some imaginative visual ideas that keep it enjoyable throughout. Not something I’d ever watch again, but I don’t regret going. There aren’t enough superhero movies aimed at younger kids like this.
Also watched the two-part debut of the new season of Only Murders In The Building. I love this show, it’s just so unashamedly entertaining. Steve Martin and Martin Short are still doing some of the best work of their careers here, and season three has Paul Rudd and Meryl Streep doing some great bits too.
Just a hugely watchable show, and I wish it was all available to plough through immediately.
Spider-Man 2
This is only the second time I’ve seen this. There’s loads I’d forgotten in the intervening 18 years or so. Also lots of people in the cast that are bigger gets now than they were then (Emily Deschanel, Joel McHale, Daniel Dae Kim). Overall… eh, it’s fine, I guess.
Molina is the best part, easily. Which is not to say Doc Ock is very good generally – I can get on-board with making him a more sympathetic villain, but the writing for him, and on the whole, isn’t desperately good (the only way to stop the big glowing magnetic thing from being magnetic is to get it wet? Because magnetism doesn’t work underwater?)
Spider-Man still isn’t very funny (I think he has one quip, which falls flat). Comic relief is still left mainly to other characters (like McHale’s bank guy in that scene) which just feels weird. Maguire still isn’t very good and Dunst out-acts him consistently in all their shared scenes, despite not having any chemistry. Harry is dreadfully one note and when getting the film’s stock plot thread solution of “x learns that Peter is Spider-Man” still gets short-shrift as the moment is rushed over. You think maybe Peter could have taken a couple of seconds to also mention that Norman was the Goblin?
Weirdly, I think the effects, at least of Spider-Man himself, look worse here than in the first film. Maybe due to a bigger reliance on CGI? But they were constantly pushing me out of the film, whereas I didn’t really notice that much with the original. That said, I love the colour palette of this film, from an era before orange and teal grading became standard.
I think it’ll be another 18 years at least before I watch it again.
So the new season of Billions started and they’re bringing back Axel… a bit weird, I thought Lewis was out, but oh well… I didn’t mind the other guy tbh, but I guess the premise of the season promises a pretty good 3-way shodown, so there that.
Spider-Man 3
I’ve avoided watching this for 16 years. Was it worth the wait? Not really, though it was kinda interesting to have “new” old Spider-Man after so long.
I don’t think there’s anything I can say about this that hasn’t been said before. It’s largely a mess with some just laughable elements: Peter’s magic emo fringe, Harry’s Goblin costume and flying snowboard, the effects on that first fight between Spidey and Harry, which has green screen as convincing as 70s Dr Who. And there are other bits that are just bad without being hilarious: I thought the way MJ was written wasn’t great, most of the dialogue is again crap, Gwen is just a mess (she’s a model because…? She’s at Harry’s funeral because…? She’s giving Spider-Man the key to the city because…?!), the use of a TV news broadcast to info dump at the climax (presumably because they realised the run time was stacking up and they needed to hurry things along), and the ending, both the final bit of Pete and MJ dancing (is she allowed to just stop singing when it’s literally her job? I can’t help but imagine all the stuff her colleagues there say about Peter given how he acted the first time he went there) and Sandman just… dissipating. Is he dead? Is he going off to see his daughter? Is he just leaving because it’s been two hours already? Oh and the plot convenient butler who only bothered to tell Harry that Norman was responsible for his own death well after Harry went on two campaigns of revenge.
There are some good elements though. Jameson is again a highlight (though his hair looks odd here). Maguire actually shows some charisma when being symbiote-influenced. Dunst is again pretty good. And hey, Spider-Man used science (in a very basic way) to mostly defeat Venom!
The biggest problem is that it just tries to do WAAAAY too much. A big sub-plot about MJ’s career improbably collapsing plus a Gwen-MJ-Peter-Eddie-Harry love quintangle plus a revenge, memory loss, revenge and redemption arc for Harry plus Sandman plus retconning Uncle Ben’s death plus the entire alien suit saga plus Eddie Brock’s entire arc including Venom. It’s like they did the plot thread brainstorming session, forgot to narrow anything down but went ahead and wrote the script anyway.
Kinda glad I finally bothered to watch it, if only to satisfy my morbid curiosity. Torn on whether to watch the Andrew Garfield movies (of which I’ve seen the first twice and the second not at all) before the extended No Way Home.
Kinda glad I finally bothered to watch it, if only to satisfy my morbid curiosity. Torn on whether to watch the Andrew Garfield movies (of which I’ve seen the first twice and the second not at all) before the extended No Way Home.
C’mon — you know you HAVE to watch both Amazings to truly satisfy that morbid curiosity, or risk losing sleep at night.
My local cinema is doing a SF season over the next few weeks, and they opened it yesterday with 2001 and Forbidden Planet. Having seen 2001 in the cinema (in that cinema even) before I decided to go with Forbidden Planet.
And I’ve seen it before a few times, so there were few surprises on show – but it’s been a couple of decades so I had rusty memories of it, and it holds up very well. It’s a movie that does a lot of firsts – the first depiction of interstellar travel with a crew of a starship, no scenes on Earth, Robby the Robot being a character with personality… This movie is pivotal to the development of SF TV and cinema. And it holds up very well for the most part. Like the design of the C-57D is dated, but the production values are solid and it feels like a real thing. And I love that central console with the sphere showing the ship in the middle, such a nice piece of design.
The central three performances: Walter Pidgeon as Morbius, Anne Francis as Altaria and Lesie Nielsen as Commander Adams are fantastic. Pidgeon does this great thing where he uhms and ahhs his way through a lot of lines, like he’s trying to convey the image of an absent-minded professor, but when he gets angry he drops it and is forceful and direct. Francis has a fantastic energy about her, giving a nuanced performance, she’s playful and naïve at turns but with a serious vibe to her as well. It’s weird to see Nielsen in a serious role when I’m far more used to him as Frank Drebin, but he’s so young here and his hair is still dark that it’s easy to forget looking at him… but then he speaks.
[3:32 PM]
The core of the story is a loos remake of The Tempest, with the ship’s crew being accosted and then attacked by an invisible creature that turns out to be a manifestation of Morbius’ id. The iconic scene where the creature becomes visible in a hail of blaster fire remains beautiful, it was animated by Disney’s Joshua Meador and the quality is astounding.
If the movie has one weakness it’s Adams and Altaira’s relationship, which goes from confrontational to romance in a single conversation. Espcially that their prior scene was him yelling at her to cover up, damnit because his crew of 18 men haven’t seen a woman in a year and… well he stops short of saying it’d be her fault for wearing something sexy, but like he literally stops himself from saying it in the movie. Her response is to wear a more demure dress the next time he sees her and it’s on from there. But at the same time, the movie seems to recognise that Adams’ attitude is wrong so that’s something at least.
Overall it was a great experience and while every SF fan should see the movie at least once, I can strongly recommend going to it in the cinema.
Next week: Close Encounters is on!
Kinda glad I finally bothered to watch it, if only to satisfy my morbid curiosity. Torn on whether to watch the Andrew Garfield movies (of which I’ve seen the first twice and the second not at all) before the extended No Way Home.
C’mon — you know you HAVE to watch both Amazings to truly satisfy that morbid curiosity, or risk losing sleep at night.
I remember taking Christel’s nephew to see ASM2. He was 12 at the time and when I asked him what he thought of it, he said it was boring. That is not the reaction you want to a Spider-Man movie from a 12-year old.
And to be honest, I agreed with him. I wasn’t wild on ASM1 either.
My local cinema is doing a SF season over the next few weeks, and they opened it yesterday with 2001 and Forbidden Planet. Having seen 2001 in the cinema (in that cinema even) before I decided to go with Forbidden Planet.
And I’ve seen it before a few times, so there were few surprises on show – but it’s been a couple of decades so I had rusty memories of it, and it holds up very well. It’s a movie that does a lot of firsts – the first depiction of interstellar travel with a crew of a starship, no scenes on Earth, Robby the Robot being a character with personality… This movie is pivotal to the development of SF TV and cinema. And it holds up very well for the most part. Like the design of the C-57D is dated, but the production values are solid and it feels like a real thing. And I love that central console with the sphere showing the ship in the middle, such a nice piece of design.
The central three performances: Walter Pidgeon as Morbius, Anne Francis as Altaria and Lesie Nielsen as Commander Adams are fantastic. Pidgeon does this great thing where he uhms and ahhs his way through a lot of lines, like he’s trying to convey the image of an absent-minded professor, but when he gets angry he drops it and is forceful and direct. Francis has a fantastic energy about her, giving a nuanced performance, she’s playful and naïve at turns but with a serious vibe to her as well. It’s weird to see Nielsen in a serious role when I’m far more used to him as Frank Drebin, but he’s so young here and his hair is still dark that it’s easy to forget looking at him… but then he speaks.
[3:32 PM]
The core of the story is a loos remake of The Tempest, with the ship’s crew being accosted and then attacked by an invisible creature that turns out to be a manifestation of Morbius’ id. The iconic scene where the creature becomes visible in a hail of blaster fire remains beautiful, it was animated by Disney’s Joshua Meador and the quality is astounding.If the movie has one weakness it’s Adams and Altaira’s relationship, which goes from confrontational to romance in a single conversation. Espcially that their prior scene was him yelling at her to cover up, damnit because his crew of 18 men haven’t seen a woman in a year and… well he stops short of saying it’d be her fault for wearing something sexy, but like he literally stops himself from saying it in the movie. Her response is to wear a more demure dress the next time he sees her and it’s on from there. But at the same time, the movie seems to recognise that Adams’ attitude is wrong so that’s something at least.
Overall it was a great experience and while every SF fan should see the movie at least once, I can strongly recommend going to it in the cinema.
Next week: Close Encounters is on!
It’s a movie I love so much.
The one scene that I love is when they’re underground and you see the Krell infrastructure. You are told how huge it is but seeing some of the scale helps to put it in perspective. So often in movies and television, you get the “snail’s eye view” to show the scale of something. I find the “bird’s eye view” more satisfying.
Something else I found quite satisfying is that we never see what the Krell look like. We can only guess and imagine. Nowadays, you would see them in boring detail.
The soundtrack is also phenomenal and really adds to the atmosphere of the film.
Farman kissing Altaira is a cringe scene nowadays because it’s sexual assault. I understand the movie was made in 1956, so “the times were different”. I wince at the scene but move on.
Definitely one of my favorites.
Kinda glad I finally bothered to watch it, if only to satisfy my morbid curiosity. Torn on whether to watch the Andrew Garfield movies (of which I’ve seen the first twice and the second not at all) before the extended No Way Home.
C’mon — you know you HAVE to watch both Amazings to truly satisfy that morbid curiosity, or risk losing sleep at night.
I remember taking Christel’s nephew to see ASM2. He was 12 at the time and when I asked him what he thought of it, he said it was boring. That is not the reaction you want to a Spider-Man movie from a 12-year old.
And to be honest, I agreed with him. I wasn’t wild on ASM1 either.
My main memories of ASM1 are Peter using Bing and… nope, that’s about it.
I’ve seen it twice and it’s one of those things that I enjoy more in the moment than I remember.
So yes, I’ve downloaded that and its sequel off Sky.
Re: Billions. I love Damian Lewis so I watched last season’s finale then Ep 1 of this season. Without background, Mike Prince is Darren Cross from Ant Man(which is another role played by that actor). Hopefully Billions will not turn him into MODOK. I loved the build up of Axe. Even down to the Ukrainian supplier and the comment about Han Solo. I caught 7.1 due to a free week of Showtime so not sure if I will see the rest of the season.
So the good news is that Babylon 5: The Road Home is the best thing to hit the franchise since the original TV show ended. And the bad news is that isn’t a high bar to cross. Which isn’t to say this is *bad* in and of itself, of course… Just setting expectations.
The plot begins during the second-last episode of the show, with Sheridan and Delenn leaving Babylon 5 to take up residence on Minbar, but when they get there an accident during the opening of a power plant sends Sheridan back and forth in time and into alternate universes, desperately trying to find a way home. This is really an excuse to give little glimpses of the show’s characters at different points in their lives and play What If with the setting – most notably an extended action sequence on the station still under Sinclair’s command under attack from the Shadows – and to give pretty much everyone a moment or two back in the spotlight.
Pretty much everyone from the cast who’s still alive comes back, and the new cast members do a good job of filling the departed live-action cast’s shoes. It’s hard not to hear half the voices Phil LaMarr does in his Dr. Franklin, but he’s also doing a decent Richard Biggs impression. Anthony Hansen stands out as Garibaldi here, he does a very good take on the character and Jerry Doyle’s mannerisms.
Similar the character designs are mostly very good, capturing the characters’ likenesses and doing a decent job with the whole digitally-paint-over-CG-model mode of animation that’s increasingly popular these days. There are multiple designs for a lot of the cast as Sheridan encounters them in different timeframes and contexts and they all work well. But with all that said it took a long time for me to link Lochley to her character design.
The movie’s biggest problem is the same as most B5 follow-ups though. The original show was a self-contained masterpiece and everything else feels like it’s tacked on. I think Crusade would have outgrown that if it lived longer, but it didn’t so it’s moot. This doesn’t add anything, it’s just a story about Sheridan that can be slotted into the universe. It’s better than the other similar attempts and I’m glad it exists, but I feel very strongly about Babylon 5 so I’m going to be harder on it for not being more, but also it was a very good chance to spend time with the characters again so I like it for that… argh.
Other than that, the main thing to note is that the script is very JMS, there’s multiple asides about little things (Sheridan ranting about Celsius and Fahrenheit while in intense discomfort for example) and there’s a lot of his punny humour on the go. I spent about as much time laughing as groaning at the jokes and I feel like that’s intentional.
New B5? I liked it. (Post this, you bastard forum)
I had forgotten just how much I like this series. And this is a superb return. A starting point for newcomers? Absolutely not, nope but if you know it, this is excellent.
Some cynics may dismiss this as little more than a string of fan service moments. It does hit a sequence of familar touchstones, but it’s been over 20 years since they were last done in a B5 story.
What really prevents the accusation of this being a thin homage to past glories is the story. It both plays with familar concepts but also weaves its tale through the wider B5 mythos already established and adds to it. Even its ending is not what you expect but fits perfectly.
Also, if you thought it impossible to make the Vorlons scarier and the Shadows creepier, you were wrong.
Can’t post the rest of the review – fuck this board.
I’ve been watching Peaky Blinders for the first time on Netflix. What a great and weird show, a 1910s period piece set in Birmingham with an A list cast. It is beautifully filmed and a good story romp with plenty of twists and turns, loving it.
I’ve never gotten the idea that Scott is cool at all. He’s a loser who sleeps on the floor, dates a 17-year-old, and has absolutely nothing going on in his life until he meets Ramona. He’s likable, but definitely not cool.
The two aren’t incompatible.
Scott is desirable but a dick. Knives desires him but he ducks out slightly because he’s conflicted by her age. I have two friends when I was a teen exactly like Scott Pilgrim. Technically losers as they lived with parents or whatever but could shag anyone they wanted. One night he was wasted on mushrooms, almost set his own hair on fire and still had two girls fighting over him.
Cera Scott is not that person, he’s the nerd that got lucky. That’s not what is in the comic, he’s a lazy fucker that still gets the girl because he’s hot.
I think I probably posted this before, but it disappeared in the board’s troubles, but I still had the note I wrote it in, so:
Amazing Spider-Man
I joked that my only memory of this was that Peter uses Bing but it’s weird how prevalent that is. Like he googles, sorry, *Bings* his father’s name as if that hadn’t occurred to him before. And then searches about product placement. It’s really clunky.
There are some good bits to this though. Peter uses science as Spider-Man! A lot! You actually get the feeling he’s a teen genius, which I never did in Raimi’s films. That he almost immediately tells Gwen he’s Spider-Man is also a good idea, creating a different dynamic to the previous trilogy. Until it stumbles back into the same “Spider-Man must push away his girlfriend” thing Raimi did. I also quite like what it does with May, having her being traumatised by Ben’s death, which is what makes her the slightly overbearing worrywart.
But for every bit that works, there are at least one or two that don’t. Martin Sheen is great, but is he really Uncle Ben or just playing a typical Martin Sheen character? The film’s reluctance to use the phrase “with great power comes great responsibility” in Ben’s scenes is just so weird and awkward. It’s a Spider-Man story, just use the phrase. The film’s insistence on tying together so much backstory and lore (Peter’s parents worked with Curt Conners for Osborn and created the spider that would bite him) is too try-hard. And then doing the death of Captain Stacy as some big moment is hollow because Peter’s only known him for what feels like ten minutes (during all of which Aunt May is pretty much absent from and forgotten by the film).
And then there’s Peter, who just doesn’t really feel like Peter Parker. Sure, he’s bullied and has a camera and he does actually make jokes, but he’s just too cool (in a lonely outsider kinda way) despite all that.
Way too much of the film is set at night too. I get that it’s, again, trying to differentiate itself from the Raimi trilogy, which was generally quite bright, but it just means most of the film is quite dim and dull. The direction of action is arguably better than the previous films (or at least there’s just more interesting action; the first person scenes for instance) but they’re just generally not that fun to watch because it’s all so visually dreary. It’s so hard to even make out Spider-Man’s costume here.
Oh and I’d forgotten just how crap the design for the Lizard is. Decades of great comic artists working on the character to crib from and they end up with that? Bleh.
Ultimately, this is so flat and awkward and undercooked that it’s hard to feel anything for it.
And then while the board was down:
Amazing Spider-Man 2
I was surprised by how much I liked some of this. The opening Spidey action was exciting, well shot and funny. Garfield’s Spidey is still too cool as Peter but he’s damned charismatic actually as Spider-Man. And I like the interaction between him and May. Oh and the suit looks better too. And it’s nice just seeing Spidey and Gwen spending time together.
But there are so many problems with the film. Jamie Foxx as dorky loser Max is just tiresome (oh it’s his birthday ::eyeroll::) and a waste of a good actor. The parasocial relationship with Spider-Man is the germ of a good idea, but is never developed properly.
All the stuff with the Peter’s parents and the Osborns can get in the bin, not least Harry’s Goblin turn. Oh the suit can heal his wounds? Why couldn’t he have just worn that to begin with? Why did Mary have to go on the run with Richard? If potential leverage Peter could be left behind, why not Mary too? The deep connections of everything to Oscorp is crap and lazy. Oh loads of Spidey villains’ gear is just hanging around in their secret vault? Fuck off.
So much just feels thin and sketched in. Peter off-handedly mentions he’s in college, but we don’t see that. Oh and he’s selling photos to the Bugle which the film clearly takes as an opportunity to do things differently, more modern. No freelance kid wandering into the editor/publisher’s office for this film! No he emails his work in! Directly to the paper’s editor/publisher. Which is just as silly and unrealistic but also robs you of the joy that is Jameson.
May is said to be training to be a nurse, supposedly to get more money to send Peter to college (even though she’d be having to pay for nursing college and that’d take as long as Peter’s degree, surely?), but it’s clearly just so they can have May be doing something dramatic during the blackout.
So much of that final battle looks like video game FMV cutscenes.
And then there’s killing Gwen, which to be honest feels the entire opposite of a bold choice. Having it be due to Harry, a character she’s spent one minute on screen with, is ridiculous, though they did at least have her die from Peter’s webbing breaking her neck, like the comic originally did. It’d have been braver to not kill Gwen off, ever. And if you’re going to kill her, do it earlier in the film, for god’s sake. Why are you rushing an entire plot about Spider-Man being sad and disappearing only to be inspired back to action by his dead gf’s words in the last five minutes of the film with a throwaway extra villain?
My god that’s a terrible version of the Rhino.
AND HOW IS PETER STILL JUST GOOGLING STUFF ABOUT HIS DAD USING UTTERLY BASIC SEARCH TERMS?!
The extended cut of No Way Home has some nice additions. I can see why most of it got cut and can live with that, but the new post credit scene of Betty’s graduation broadcast should have been on the “proper” version instead of the Dr Strange trailer. It answers some of the questions people had about how Peter could be forgotten despite there being visual evidence.
Also, I liked the expanded conversation between the Spider-Men at the Statue of Liberty. I’d have tried to not trim that down.
Star Wars: Ahsoka was a surprisingly good 2-ep opener.
I wasn’t expecting much from this Mandalorian sequel. It is a good Rebels sequel and really picks up strands from that, and much, much wider. Obscure things like E-Wings for instance. There is also the fun aspect of seeing a location that was previously animated being rendered in live action, with all that that entails.
Some really good cameos and familar US faces turn up here too. Ray Stevenson’s dark jedi makes for a good villain. Then there is the Rebels characters – Hera, Sabine, Chopper – who transfer well to live action.
For any kid who grew up watching Rebels, this will hit far, far harder. For those who watched Rebels not as a kid, it also works very well. It’s a fun, good start.
Star Wars: Ahsoka was a surprisingly good 2-ep opener.
I wasn’t expecting much from this Mandalorian sequel. It is a good Rebels sequel and really picks up strands from that, and much, much wider. Obscure things like E-Wings for instance. There is also the fun aspect of seeing a location that was previously animated being rendered in live action, with all that that entails.
Some really good cameos and familar US faces turn up here too. Ray Stevenson’s dark jedi makes for a good villain. Then there is the Rebels characters – Hera, Sabine, Chopper – who transfer well to live action.
For any kid who grew up watching Rebels, this will hit far, far harder. For those who watched Rebels not as a kid, it also works very well. It’s a fun, good start.
As someone who never watched any of the S.W. animated series, it was a good start. It gave you enough information without overwhelming you so you could enjoy the story they are telling.
I think all the board glitches recently deleted me review of the latest iteration of Futurama.
Having watched a couple more episodes, it really is mediocre. It’s not terrible by any means but it’s lacking the heart and intelligence of the original run. It’s like they feel the need to comment on current trends and pop culture. It already feels dated and it just aired! They used to tell silly and fun stories that would occasionally grab your heart. It really lacks the spark it once had.
I also watched Ahsoka episodes 1 and 2 and I thought they were OK. Being a straight-up sequel to Rebels meant the characters showing up wasn’t as self-indulgent as the various guest spots in Mandalorian. But it has a few big issues in the writing and the execution. There’s multiple sequences where Ahsoka fights an enemy who escapes with the thing they’re fighting over and she just walks away. Yer wan from Mandalorian turning out to be a Witch of Dathomir asks questions about why she didn’t use her Force abilities to resist capture and it really feels like something that’s been added to bring the actor and character back but give them something to do. And a lot of the performances are wooden at points.
The other major issue is that most of the actions scenes just aren’t that good. Like compare the two Dark Jedi going through the Rebel ship at the start of episode 1 to Darth Vader at the end of Rogue One. There’s a shot of Ray Stevenson’s character deflecting blaster shots but he’s moving so slowly that it really feels like he pulled some basic moves and they rotoscoped the blasters to meet his lightsabre. Like obviously that’s what they always do for these scenes, but it’s not always so blatant. It reminds me a lot of that one episode of Mandalorian series 1 that Ming-na Wen was in and there was this incredibly limp and lifeless fight, when she’s one of the better martial artists working in TV (and to be fair, she was much better in her series 2 appearance). Similarly the actor playing Sabine has worked with Yuen Wo Ping, but her duel in episode 1 is bland. I will say that the fight in episode 2 is better, but this should be the show’s bread and butter.
The core story isn’t bad and it doesn’t feel as blatantly fanservicey as Mandalorian, which is to it’s favour. It just needs a bit more zing. Like do what Japanese toku shows do and shoot the action scenes at a different frame rate to make them seem faster even when the actors are moving at the same speed.
Interesting, I’ve been seeing both the claim that it was inaccessible to a new viewer and a bad Rebels sequel. Fandom at work.
It gave me enough foundation that I didn’t feel completely lost.
It’s like in movies or TV shows where two characters are introduced and you find out they have a backstory together. You will get snippets but never really see it. It creates a shorthand for the relationship and the story. Sometimes, the backstory is revealed but a lot of times, it’s not.
In this case, there is a backstory I can explore if I want to.
Solar Opposites
For the past few months, I’ve been watching the series. This weekend, I finished Season 3 and am mostly through Season 4. It’s a really good show. It’s funny and the subplots progress over the seasons.
Justin Roiland co-created the show and performed the voice of Korvo. Due to being a sex pest, Roiland was fired and was replaced with Dan Stevens. The switch works surprisingly well. Except for a few word choices, the character dialogue hasn’t changed. It could be read by either actor. More often than not, voice changes are a complete disaster (I’m looking at you Squidbillies) but due to the sci-fi silliness, it just works.
I really like the series.
Let’s try posting the full review.
Babylon 5: The Road Home
I had forgotten just how much I like this series. And this is a superb return. A starting point for newcomers? Absolutely not, nope but if you know it, this is excellent.
Some cynics may dismiss this as little more than a string of fan service moments. It does hit a sequence of familar touchstones, but it’s been over 20 years since they were last done in a B5 story.
What really prevents the accusation of this being a thin homage to past glories is the story. It both plays with familar concepts but also weaves its tale through the wider B5 mythos already established and adds to it. Even its ending is not what you expect but fits perfectly.
Also, if you thought it impossible to make the Vorlons scarier and the Shadows creepier, you were wrong.
One of the biggest bars to new B5 stories – aside from a now retired Warner Bros executive who despised it – is the sheer number of deaths in the cast for it. Of 14 characters, only six of the cast are alive. The voice recasting is uncanny. I’m sure differences could be found but this is as good as it could ever be.
If I needed any encouragment to nab the Blu-Ray box set in December, this supplied it. Not that I do.
This was a great return.
I finally got round to seeing Bill and Ted Face The Music. It was basically what I was expecting, so I wasn’t disappointed. It rehashed all the same tropes and themes and even jokes as the original(s), sometimes missing the mark but rarely failing to be entertaining, and there were some big laugh-out-loud moments. (I could point to the bucket head moment, which sums up the movie: really cheap, stupid slapstick, but still hilariously funny; and making no logical sense at all other than for cheap slapstick laughs, but also making perfect sense within the movie’s internal logic.)
There were some side characters from the originals that they had no need to shoe-horn into this movie, but I understand why they wanted to and I don’t begrudge them doing it. And there was an awesome unexpected cameo (who I won’t name because spoilers, but if you’ve seen it you’ll know who I mean).
The weakest part for me was the daughters. I didn’t find the characters believable, which might sound weird in a film like this, but what I mean is: Reeves and Winter, even at their current ages, still convince me that they are Bill & Ted, whereas the actors playing the daughters feel like they’re acting as Bill & Ted, which got a bit irritating. But overall, their roles worked within the movie and I appreciated the idea even if not the characters as such.
I actually rewatched Bill and T3d the other day and liked it a lot more on a rewatch. I enjoyed it first time around but I laughed more this time. I did like Brigitte Lundy-Paine and Samara Weaving as Billie and Thea though. While they were emulating Bill and Ted’s mannerisms, I liked that they were huge music nerds in a way their fathers never were. Also, I forgot Jillian Bell was in it as the couples therapist, and I really like her.
Ahsoka episode 3 didn’t engage me much at all, I’m afraid. I’m still vaguely curious about the story and it looks great, but we get a couple of direct references to A New Hope that felt self-indulgent in the same way Mandalorian did, and then an interminably long action scene that wasn’t particularly exciting. Not quite at the level of dropping the show but Lower Decks is back next week and that’s a much better use of a half hour than this…
Ahsoka episode 3 didn’t engage me much at all, I’m afraid. I’m still vaguely curious about the story and it looks great, but we get a couple of direct references to A New Hope that felt self-indulgent in the same way Mandalorian did, and then an interminably long action scene that wasn’t particularly exciting. Not quite at the level of dropping the show but Lower Decks is back next week and that’s a much better use of a half hour than this…
The pacing on that episode was horrendous. The sword training at the start went on way too long, then the dogfight dragged on forever, only for the characters to learn information the audience already knew.
And as usual with Disney+ the episodes are getting shorter with each one..really doesn’t feel like a satisfying weekly watch at all.
I have concerns for the various post-RotJ series since it was announced that they would all feed into a movie that concludes the tale started with The Mandalorian (possibly going as far back as the various animated series). I don’t recall how many more seasons/series we will have till the movie but it feels like these series will have some hanging threads which may lead to some unsatifying conclusions. We will then have to wait for a movie that I honestly think will feel like a wild mess to include everyone and everything.
Solar Opposites
For the past few months, I’ve been watching the series. This weekend, I finished Season 3 and am mostly through Season 4. It’s a really good show. It’s funny and the subplots progress over the seasons.
Justin Roiland co-created the show and performed the voice of Korvo. Due to being a sex pest, Roiland was fired and was replaced with Dan Stevens. The switch works surprisingly well. Except for a few word choices, the character dialogue hasn’t changed. It could be read by either actor. More often than not, voice changes are a complete disaster (I’m looking at you Squidbillies) but due to the sci-fi silliness, it just works.
I really like the series.
I finished the latest season last night. I really enjoy the show. It has a surprising continuity, especially with the subplots which will occassionally take over an episode with the main characters as cameos, if they appear at all. There is more character development than you would expect. It’s also quite funny.
Haven’t seen ep3 yet, but pacing was also a major issue in the first two Ahsoka episodes, I thought. Also, the dialogue and character dynamics were just too predictable and obvious… I do like the dark jedi couple, and the actors are doing a lot with the very little that they’ve actually been given to do up to this point. I agree with Lordan’s view of the action scenes.
I have concerns for the various post-RotJ series since it was announced that they would all feed into a movie that concludes the tale started with The Mandalorian (possibly going as far back as the various animated series). I don’t recall how many more seasons/series we will have till the movie but it feels like these series will have some hanging threads which may lead to some unsatifying conclusions. We will then have to wait for a movie that I honestly think will feel like a wild mess to include everyone and everything.
Nah, I don’t think that’ll be a problem as they have an array of disposable villains in place. First there was Gideon, now we have Morgan, Baylan, Shin and Marrok. One or two may make it to the film but no more than that, as the film’s focus will be on Thrawn.
The bigger problem to me is timing and them spacing it out too much. There’s no set date for the film but rumour says winter 2025 which feels far too long, unless they’re slinging in a Mando S4. But even with that I don’t think big gaps work.
As to the ep, it was all right, but….A dogfight where too many characters have plot armour isn’t exactly thrilling. Nor did the ANH-style presentation aid it, is there really no other way to present a space dogfight? Especially with the advances in VFX since 1977.
For all that it was infuriatingly obvious and clunky, there was a rather neat nod to the likes of Canto Bight with Senator Xiano. I am sceptical that despatching a few ships requires group senatorial approval. It suggests a too top-down heavy structure where those at the top lack confidence in themselves and their people. Did like the fleet sequence.
The sword training irritates for a different reason – in what we see of how Luke was trained by both Kenobi and Yoda, neither did training by humiliation. This got a bit too close to being that.
It also ended far too abruptly. It’s an OK middle episode. I continue to enjoy Tennant’s Huyang. But yeah, this one had flaws.
Netflix has a documentary series about American Gladiators which is fascinating. The first half of the first season was absolutely shocking and yet the original pilot was somehow even worse. The whole series was a real “work it out as we go” deal, which is mad for something so physical and dangerous. Really good oral history documentary.
https://www.joe.ie/amp/movies-tv/netflix-batman-animated-series-watch-780955
Apparently Batman TAS is coming to UK Netflix. I was initially excited by this but, given the news is only being reported on the above “who the fuck are these guys” I’ve reined in my expectations.
https://www.joe.ie/amp/movies-tv/netflix-batman-animated-series-watch-780955
Apparently Batman TAS is coming to UK Netflix. I was initially excited by this but, given the news is only being reported on the above “who the fuck are these guys” I’ve reined in my expectations.
26 September: https://www.netflix.com/title/70177020
Ah, I didnt think to check on Netflix itself.
The Venture Bros.: Radiant Is the Blood of the Baboon Heart
THAT WAS AWESOME!!!!
It wrapped up everything, answered the outstanding questions, and still left it open for more in the future. There are so many tiny details that are fucking hilarious.
If this is truly the end, it absolutely stuck the landing.
Now and forever, GO TEAM VENTURE!!! ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️
What We Do in the Shadows Season 5
I finished the last two episodes of the season and they were hilarious. How it ends will be interesting to see how things go next season. A bunch of great cameos and callbacks to earlier in the series. Straangely, the finale almost felt like it could have served as a series finale.
I love this series and can’t wait for next season.
Had no idea where to put this.
A friend has no idea who David Tennant is.
Seriously figured there would be some video of him saying “Outstanding!” (because how could there not be?), but no luck.
Now Google tells me to go to bed (probably not bad advice, but good luck with that…)
Good Omens season 2 was alright. Quite fun in its way, although nowhere near as great as the original novel was. In a way, it made for better watching because it was made for TV in the first place this time, but on the other hand, the story didn’t feel as special as the original one did.
Oh, and They Cloned Tyrone on Netflix was a fun little movie. A neat blaxploitation homage with a great cast (John Boyega, Jamie Foxx and for some reason Kiefer Sutherland), walks the line between actual sci-fi/horror and parody quite well, I thought.
I just finished s2 of American Auto, which I really enjoyed. Not a Community level genre-redefining show but it had a good cast, nice characters and had decent jokes and that’s all you need, really. Humphrey Ker is especially good in it.
But of course it has been cancelled.
I just finished s2 of American Auto, which I really enjoyed. Not a Community level genre-redefining show but it had a good cast, nice characters and had decent jokes and that’s all you need, really. Humphrey Ker is especially good in it.
But of course it has been cancelled.
Yeah, that one’s a shame. Not as good as Superstore (from the same people), but very enjoyable, especially Ker.