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Watch, Watched, Watching: Ringing in 2018


RedEyedGhost

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I just started Peaky Blinders today, got three episodes in. Being American (or it's just me) it's tough to understand some of the dialogue with the thick accents. Also, is it just me or are the music bits way louder than the speaking parts? Seems like I keep adjusting my volume.

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3 hours ago, Veltigar said:

I can imagine. It's just plain weird. I loved it though. I don't get to see that much television and film anymore, so I'm very glad that one of the things I did get to see was such a creative little outlier (thank God for the boards for recommending it). I also really liked the format. Short season, very short episodes and yet still not a story of the week kind of format. I think we need more experimentation with runtime on television, that would vastly elevate the standards of our TV-shows imo.

 

2 minutes ago, dbunting said:

FInished it today. I know I enjoyed it quite a bit. I liked the way they gave you the two leads feedback using internal thoughts to the same situations. That was a plus for me. Not sure about another season but I'd give it a try.

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So I assume that we as viewers are supposed to decide on our own what happened with that last shot off screen? Did he kill himself or was he shot by the police?

 

At the time, I didn't think I liked it as much as I did. I mean I did like it, but it's been a week since I finished it and it's one of those shows that sticks with me and I realize how much I liked the entire series. The premise, the characters, the actors. All great.

Only

Spoiler

The hurting of animals always gives me the sads more than anything else. The cats were bad, but the poor dog :crying:

Even when it's good or even necessary for the plot, like it was here, it's so hard for me to forgive the production, but in a show like this, I manage to eventually for how good the rest is.  

 

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3 hours ago, dbunting said:

FInished it today. I know I enjoyed it quite a bit. I liked the way they gave you the two leads feedback using internal thoughts to the same situations. That was a plus for me. Not sure about another season but I'd give it a try.

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So I assume that we as viewers are supposed to decide on our own what happened with that last shot off screen? Did he kill himself or was he shot by the police?

 

Yeah, we're supposed to 

Spoiler

figure that one out for ourselves. They can give it another sequel, and have some explanation about him getting away or only getting captured. But if not, we can just as easily decide for ourselves whether we believe he's been killed or only injured or got away. If it doesn't get another season, I'll just assume he was shot ;) 

 

I do think the shots solely came from the police though. He didn't appear to be the suicidal type ( he didn't really have much incentive really) and we don't even know if the gun he carried was loaded. The police on the other hand wanted to arrest him without having their lives threatened. 

I think a bigger question is actually did Alyssa's father die? They can handwave the killing of that professor/serial killer since it was self-defense and James was still a minor. Alyssa stabbing her father leading him to bleed to death on the other hand is certainly not self-defense and counts as murder. They could have the plot of next season revolve around James trying to bust her out of prison or something ;) 

 

3 hours ago, drawkcabi said:

 

Only

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The hurting of animals always gives me the sads more than anything else. The cats were bad, but the poor dog :crying:

Even when it's good or even necessary for the plot, like it was here, it's so hard for me to forgive the production, but in a show like this, I manage to eventually for how good the rest is.  

 

Yeah, that slayed me as well

Spoiler

Like, I could handwave the cat and all as part of the standard road to becoming a serial killer (it's weird how they all seemed to have tortured little animals), but the dog... that just came out-of-nowhere and they found a way to prolong it by having the whole discussion about putting it out of its misery. I thought they would both proof incapable of doing that and then she just went and did it. Quite a shock. 

 

3 hours ago, drawkcabi said:

 

At the time, I didn't think I liked it as much as I did. I mean I did like it, but it's been a week since I finished it and it's one of those shows that sticks with me and I realize how much I liked the entire series. The premise, the characters, the actors. All great.

:cheers: What I also liked about the show is that it showed me a side of the UK I wasn't really familiar with. It felt strangely American, with the road trip and the sort of country and people they encountered throughout their voyage. Not like I usually think of the UK at any rate :) 

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27 minutes ago, Veltigar said:

:cheers: What I also liked about the show is that it showed me a side of the UK I wasn't really familiar with. It felt strangely American, with the road trip and the sort of country and people they encountered throughout their voyage. Not like I usually think of the UK at any rate :) 

Yeah this for me too.

I even thought while I was watching this how much it seemed like a U.S. road trip and how far could they really get in the UK. The old adage springing to mind, "In the U.S. we think 100 years is a long time, in the U.K. they think 100 miles (or Km) is a long distance."

But what a beautiful country!!! 

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8 hours ago, Triskele said:

All of this, and I think it's not just me but a few other folks in the threads for this show echo this.  Season 1 was great on the surface but didn't stick for whatever reason, and season 2 just gets really strong.  

Amos actor just doesn't physically fit the book Amos but guy kills it and makes it work.  Naomi and Alex are great and so much like their book versions.  Holden actor is the biggest weakness; really hope he improves as the show goes forward.

I doubt it improves much. Holden on the page is not interesting so not much more the actor can do with it. I think he could be lightened up a bit but that's also down to writing.

Love the portrayal of Amos in the show. By far my favorite character. And agreed about Naomi/Alex.

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I finally, finally got around to watching Snowpiercer. Had to buy it on Blu-ray because it has never been on Prime or Netflix in the UK and has not been on TV to my knowledge. I guess after that wait it was likely to be disappointing on some level. I had tried to find out as little as possible about it before seeing it so that it could be somewhat fresh for me. I don't know really, it was ok. A little underwhelming (as a post-apoc film) but relatively engaging as an action film. Tilda Swinton was fabulous as always.

Today I watched a Netflix doc which had been recommended to me called The Mask You Live In which is about the concept of masculinity and what happens to boys at a young age where they have it drummed into them that they need to internalise all of their emotions. I feel as if we are surrounded by examples of toxic masculinity (it's really getting ugly in the beer industry right now) so this topic is as relevant as ever. Of course it's hugely depressing but there is also some hope there. It's only about 1.5 hrs long so I'd recommend everyone give it a look.

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2 hours ago, Mexal said:

I doubt it improves much. Holden on the page is not interesting so not much more the actor can do with it. I think he could be lightened up a bit but that's also down to writing.

Love the portrayal of Amos in the show. By far my favorite character. And agreed about Naomi/Alex.

I like Holden well enough in the books.  They seem to have ramped up his douchiness on the show to eleven, though, and the actor playing him just has one of those punchable faces, which doesn't help.

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Started Manhunt: Unabomber. Obviously feels similar to Mindhunter given the premise. I barely recognized Paul Bettany and his first scene hooked me. It was very much like the introduction of Ed Kemper in Mindhunter. Haven't seen Sam Worthington in anything since Avatar or Terminator Salvation but he's been fine so far.

Edit: I'm a little surprised Netflix made 2 FBI profiler shows within such a close timeframe. 

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1 minute ago, WarGalley said:

Started Manhunt: Unabomber. Obviously feels similar to Mindhunter given the premise. I barely recognized Paul Bettany and his first scene hooked me. It was very much like the introduction of Ed Kemper in Mindhunter. Haven't seen Sam Worthington in anything since Avatar or Terminator Salvation but he's been fine so far.

Edit: I'm a little surprised Netflix made 2 FBI profiler shows within such a close timeframe. 

Manhunt wasn't made by Netflix. It was made by Discovery channel and it's excellent.

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18 minutes ago, Mexal said:

Manhunt wasn't made by Netflix. It was made by Discovery channel and it's excellent.

Interesting. I did not know Discovery channel even made shows outside of their reality TV style stuff. Given the cast and quality of production, it's very surprising. If the show had not been on Netflix or talked about in this thread, I don't think I'd be aware it existed.

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I've been fishing around for a new show to hook me. Two episodes of The Chi and quite good so far. The lives of interconnected residents in inner city Chicago and how an event affects them. I've also been watching The Pact (Pakt) and Halfworlds from HBO Europe and HBO Asia, respectively. The Pact is a Polish thriller about a government conspiracy a journalist is uncovering and Halfworlds is a joint Indonesian and Thai production about the crossing of the parallel worlds of humans and demons from Indonesian mythology. The Pact is a bit formulaic so far, but Halfworlds is fun.

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47 minutes ago, Triskele said:

I saw Downsizing and thought it was...pretty bad.  It had a strange tone where certain parts felt out of place and like it couldn't decide exactly what kind of movie it was. 

Yeah, that’s pretty much what I’ve heard. Kind of disappointing since I’ve liked every movie Alexander Payne has done. 

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(Re)started watching Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries, light and lovely and genuinely funny at times. I've seen the first few episodes some years ago, but it is still a good experience starting at the beginning.

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Don't know if this is coming out in 2018, so I'll post it here.

Awesome! I've read this novel and it was the first thing I thought about when Trump was elected.

David Simon Is Adapting Philip Roth’s The Plot Against America, About Life Under a Xenophobic, Anti-Semitic President, Into a Miniseries\
 
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A friend called me and said that I really had to watch the pilot for Knightfall. He said I would understand and boy did I ever :lol: That was almost to painful to watch. Horrific VFX, bad acting, shoddy dialogue, weird editing you name it, this pilot had it all. I'm almost tempted to watch more of it, just to see how ridiculous it will eventually become. 

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On ‎1‎/‎14‎/‎2018 at 4:01 PM, dbunting said:

I just started Peaky Blinders today, got three episodes in. Being American (or it's just me) it's tough to understand some of the dialogue with the thick accents. Also, is it just me or are the music bits way louder than the speaking parts? Seems like I keep adjusting my volume.

Adding my previous comment here due to the ridiculousness of it...I had mentioned Taboo in it, regarding the hard to understand accents, then deleted them. I then get to Season 2 of Peaky Blinders and guess who shows up!!!!???? Tom freaking Hardy and an accent! Does anyone know if this performance had any influence on him getting the Taboo role?

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