Watch, Watched, Watching: There are 17,000 new TV shows to watch and I have the weekend

[williamjm]

Went to see Passengers. I liked the starship setting (I was going to say generation starship, but I guess it technically isn't) and the contrast between the shiny corporate cheerfulness of all the machines and how horrifying a prison it would have felt for the people trapped in it, and the puzzle of how to fix a ship that was slowly falling apart worked well as a plot. What I didn't like about it was...

... that the tone veered wildly from acknowledging the fundamental creepiness of the premise to ending up with a disconcertingly saccharine ending. I think the film-makers may think of it as a happy ending, but it seemed more like an extreme case of Stockholm Syndrome. If they demanded a happy ending then I think it could have worked if Aurora had gotten into the Autodoc to sleep for the remainder of the journey.

[dbunting]

Watched Patriots Day this weekend, putting stuff in spoilers even though it's based on factual events just to be safe.

Spoiler

I was thoroughly engrossed in this movie for the entire time. I had heard that they were going to make this close to reality so some of it was new to me. I wasn't aware of bombs being used during the shoot out in Watertown. I remember the news talking about unexploded bombs and that there was a fierce gun battle though.

I have read up on interviews with the actual people portrayed in the movie and all of them say that this is very accurate. Said there are some differences, like Walbergs character being a composite of a couple officers, and some balls of flames were added that didn't happen, but that aside from that it's pretty factual. They even filmed inside two of the peoples actual homes. I enjoyed it and felt it.

 

[Week]

2 hours ago, dbunting said:

Watched Patriots Day this weekend, putting stuff in spoilers even though it's based on factual events just to be safe.

  Hide contents

I was thoroughly engrossed in this movie for the entire time. I had heard that they were going to make this close to reality so some of it was new to me. I wasn't aware of bombs being used during the shoot out in Watertown. I remember the news talking about unexploded bombs and that there was a fierce gun battle though.

I have read up on interviews with the actual people portrayed in the movie and all of them say that this is very accurate. Said there are some differences, like Walbergs character being a composite of a couple officers, and some balls of flames were added that didn't happen, but that aside from that it's pretty factual. They even filmed inside two of the peoples actual homes. I enjoyed it and felt it.

 

Regrettably, this is going to be one of those "know a guy who knew someone there" stories. So, as warned, I worked with a guy who was friends with a Watertown/Boston cop (forget which) who was formerly in the military and served multiple tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. He said that he was more scared that night than any he had in the military because of the huge number of officers in the manhunt that were woefully under-trained. He was shocked that there weren't more casualties from friendly fire - both random shooting and a number of the stakeouts were lined up where officers were essentially shooting at each other - with the brothers' car in between.

Feel free to take that with a sufficiently large grain of salt, but I found it pretty interesting.

Also, that said, I have zero interest in this movie. As a former resident of Boston for nearly a dozen years and a born and raised Masshole - the "Boston Strong" and "you messed with the wrong city" juxtaposed with the insane victim complex is too much for me. It was a tragic event that ruined many lives - no further angst, self-importance, etc. etc. necessary.

[Isis]

I watched Ender's Game last night. Glad I waited a while after it came out as I think that my expectations were a little lower than they might have been. I was expecting to hate it but I actually thought it was ok! Not totally sold on Ben Kingsley - the actual character was fine, just not 100% the performance worked. Harrison Ford does precisely nothing that you aren't expecting his character to do so I guess that's fine. It has been quite a while since I read the book so I can't exactly recall where the story finished in the first book. Is it the same place as the film? ... Ok, I just compared synopses for book and film. Yeah, I think they did an alright job of adapting the story and making a decent film out of it.

TL, DR: I was expecting it to be terrible but it was ok.

[dbunting]

11 hours ago, Week said:

Regrettably, this is going to be one of those "know a guy who knew someone there" stories. So, as warned, I worked with a guy who was friends with a Watertown/Boston cop (forget which) who was formerly in the military and served multiple tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. He said that he was more scared that night than any he had in the military because of the huge number of officers in the manhunt that were woefully under-trained. He was shocked that there weren't more casualties from friendly fire - both random shooting and a number of the stakeouts were lined up where officers were essentially shooting at each other - with the brothers' car in between.

Feel free to take that with a sufficiently large grain of salt, but I found it pretty interesting.

Also, that said, I have zero interest in this movie. As a former resident of Boston for nearly a dozen years and a born and raised Masshole - the "Boston Strong" and "you messed with the wrong city" juxtaposed with the insane victim complex is too much for me. It was a tragic event that ruined many lives - no further angst, self-importance, etc. etc. necessary.

Yeah, the firefight did show an injury from friendly fire and cops being shot at mistakenly in a truck, so it captured the chaos pretty well. Amazing there weren't more fatalities though.

[Ramsay B.]

15 hours ago, Week said:

Also, that said, I have zero interest in this movie. As a former resident of Boston for nearly a dozen years and a born and raised Masshole - the "Boston Strong" and "you messed with the wrong city" juxtaposed with the insane victim complex is too much for me. It was a tragic event that ruined many lives - no further angst, self-importance, etc. etc. necessary.

Totally agree.

I finally watched The Night Manager and it was a complete letdown. The first episode was decent and then it was basically just a clichéd, predictable and outlandish mess after that. One of the reasons I watched it now was because I wanted to see who beat out Thandie Newton for best supporting actress. Olivia Colman was definitely a bright spot in the series but no way she outshined Thandie. Spoiler rant:

Spoiler

Basically everything just fell perfectly into Pine's lap at every turn. He takes over the drug trade in like 2 seconds in that village in dramatic fashion(he beats up a dude). After getting in with Roper, he gets the alarm info from the son and executes it with 2 seconds to spare! Caroline tells him about the arms deal coming up for whatever reason. He swoops in and sweet talks a guy into making the arms deal when Roper was struggling to convince him(Roper is so impressed!). Then him and Jed eyefuck for like 3 episodes in front of everyone and nobody notices a thing, besides Corky. The romance part was plain annoying. Shit starts to get weird and somehow the evil genius Roper never, ever suspects the brand new guy until the way end. Sure. And there's more I just don't remember.

I guess I just expected way more with such stellar reviews everywhere.  It was just one cliché after another.

 

[DunderMifflin]

Wooooooo David Brent (the office uk) movie is on Netflix Feb. 10. Been wanting to see this since I heard of it.

[Isis]

I watched Whiplash last night. I had some expectations going in, e.g. it would be super long and go on and on, or it wouldn't be interesting if you weren't really into (and know a lot about) music, and just a general feeling that I would be disappointed by the reality of it.

Well, firstly, it actually felt like a short (ish) film - which it isn't. So that's some really good structuring/writing/directing I guess. It didn't feel like it dragged in any place. Also, the lead was very good, believable as a completely 'normal' i.e. non-obsessive guy getting obsessive about one thing. Actually, you know, the more I think about it in light of his performance the more I like the film. One thing though, not sure about the ending - in that it seems to be a bit abrupt. Don't want to spoil anyone so I won't say any more. But glad I finally saw it.

[williamjm]

Finally got round to watching the final few episodes of Humans season 2. I thought it was a good season overall and came to a good ending, even if some bits were a bit contrived.

The situation where Mattie had to broadcast the consciousness code to all synths to somehow save Mia seemed a bit implausible and also as if the scriptwriters really wanted a particular ending but had no better idea about how to achieve it. Niska showing up just at the right moment was also very convenient. It does set things up nicely for a third season, although I don't know if they're intending to make one.

I think the penultimate episode with the raid on the Qualia facility was perhaps the best bit of the season, the scene with the escaping synths all dropping dead in front of Leo's eyes was particularly effective.

[RedEyedGhost]

I watched Harry Potter & The Sorcerer's Stone last night.  This was my first exposure to Harry Potter other than pop culture references... It was not good.  That opening scene was one of the worst I've ever seen.  Lot's of terrible acting, but most especially from Harry's Aunt/Uncle/Cousin, they should feel very embarrassed for that story line (Rowling if it's true to the books and the film writers for keeping it if it was).  The special effects were far from that.  Most of the story was light and fun though, so I'll watch the next one, and I'm sure they get much better as the series progresses, it is 16 years old after all. 

Right now I'm watching the first episode of Sneaky Pete on Amazon.  The cast is stellar (Bryan Cranston, Margo Martindale, Peter Gerety, Giovanni Ribisi) and I hope the show as a whole lives up to that. 

[l2 0 5 5]

Just watched the first episode of The Magicians. I was hooked from the start. I will keep watching.

[Teng Ai Hui]

I recently finished season one of Kingdom, about a family of mma fighters. It wasn't great but was entertaining enough. Then, when I moved on to the next season, unresolved storylines were dropped and the two sons suddenly found girlfriends. The tone changed and I stopped enjoying it.

Now I've started watching Travelers. I'm four episodes in. It's excellent so far.

[Isis]

Went to watch Manchester by the Sea last night and thought it was probably as good as everyone said it was. I reckon Casey Affleck will edge it over Ryan Gosling because his role is a little more misery-laden. Actually the film overall was less 'sad' than the trailer suggested. Whoever made that particular trailer did a great job of it. And Michelle Williams was amazing in it, as usual.

ETA: Weirdly until the opening credits rolled I hadn't actually remembered the fact that there was a Manchester in NE (almost flew into there the last time we were in NE in fact). But as soon as I saw the aerial shots of the water and the trees and all the cutesy little houses I was like, 'of course!'

[Ramsay B.]

22 hours ago, Isis said:

One thing though, not sure about the ending - in that it seems to be a bit abrupt. Don't want to spoil anyone so I won't say any more. But glad I finally saw it.

I think the ending is absolutely amazing and didn't mind the abrupt ending. I feel if they added on a few more scenes it would've just took away some of the impact of it.

[dbunting]

I have finished the first two seasons of The Killing. Seemed to get worse as it went along. The first couple episodes really hooked me but then the plot turned and twisted 27 times and felt like it was taking forever. There are like 16 more episodes and I will watch them, but am glad the first murder has been wrapped up.

[Mexal]

15 hours ago, RedEyedGhost said:

I watched Harry Potter & The Sorcerer's Stone last night.  This was my first exposure to Harry Potter other than pop culture references... It was not good.  That opening scene was one of the worst I've ever seen.  Lot's of terrible acting, but most especially from Harry's Aunt/Uncle/Cousin, they should feel very embarrassed for that story line (Rowling if it's true to the books and the film writers for keeping it if it was).  The special effects were far from that.  Most of the story was light and fun though, so I'll watch the next one, and I'm sure they get much better as the series progresses, it is 16 years old after all. 

Right now I'm watching the first episode of Sneaky Pete on Amazon.  The cast is stellar (Bryan Cranston, Margo Martindale, Peter Gerety, Giovanni Ribisi) and I hope the show as a whole lives up to that. 

The Harry Potter movies get better as they go, mostly starting with the 3rd when Alfonso Curon darkens the atmosphere. I recently did a Harry Potter marathon with my fiancé and mom, neither of which had seen any and thought it stood up really well as a whole story.

Sneaky Pete is really enjoyable. It has the same writers as Justified (Yost as showrunner with a similar writing room)  plus great character actors. The story is ok, but like most of the Justified seasons, the secondary characters shine and the ending gets absolutely nuts as all of the separate side threads flow into the main thread. Very entertaining.

[matt b]

The Good Place season finale was last night and it was brilliant. I really hope they bring that one back for a season 2. Consistently funny and they managed to do some really amazing storytelling that I didn't think was possible in a network comedy. Ted Danson kills it, especially in the finale.
 

[RedEyedGhost]

1 hour ago, Mexal said:

The Harry Potter movies get better as they go, mostly starting with the 3rd when Alfonso Curon darkens the atmosphere. I recently did a Harry Potter marathon with my fiancé and mom, neither of which had seen any and thought it stood up really well as a whole story.

Sneaky Pete is really enjoyable. It has the same writers as Justified (Yost as showrunner with a similar writing room)  plus great character actors. The story is ok, but like most of the Justified seasons, the secondary characters shine and the ending gets absolutely nuts as all of the separate side threads flow into the main thread. Very entertaining.

That's good to hear.  It wasn't so bad that I wasn't going to continue, but were it to not improve, I doubt that I would keep watching.

Nice about Sneaky Pete being from the writers as Justified, I hadn't heard that.  I am a little surprise at how much "story of the week" each episode has had so far, I'm through episode four.

 

53 minutes ago, matt b said:

The Good Place season finale was last night and it was brilliant. I really hope they bring that one back for a season 2. Consistently funny and they managed to do some really amazing storytelling that I didn't think was possible in a network comedy. Ted Danson kills it, especially in the finale.

Dang, I didn't know that was the finale.  Had I, I would have watched it instead of another episode of Sneak Pete.

[Mexal]

1 minute ago, RedEyedGhost said:

That's good to hear.  It wasn't so bad that I wasn't going to continue, but were it to not improve, I doubt that I would keep watching.

Nice about Sneaky Pete being from the writers as Justified, I hadn't heard that.  I am a little surprise at how much "story of the week" each episode has had so far, I'm through episode four.

They all come together in the end. You'll see.

[Week]

1 hour ago, matt b said:

The Good Place season finale was last night and it was brilliant. I really hope they bring that one back for a season 2. Consistently funny and they managed to do some really amazing storytelling that I didn't think was possible in a network comedy. Ted Danson kills it, especially in the finale.
 

It was really excellent. I had been watching the show mostly on Hulu but happened to catch this live completely by accident.