Watch, Watched, Watching: Ringing in 2018

[Astromech]

1 hour ago, Veltigar said:

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  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. 

It really is a special kind of remarkable. I wanted so badly for it to be good. Oh well, hopefully it ends up at least better than The Bastard Executioner. However,

Spoiler

that angry mob scene where that one guy blasts that little kid in the face with the rock had me in tears. The editing seemed so bad, as to almost be an extremely late addition after everything was wrapped. The siege soldiers trying to scale the walls of Acre with ladders was also hilarious since the Templars were all mounted and lined up in full battle formation just waiting to charge them.

 

[DireWolfSpirit]

I havent had any problems with the accents or music volume during Peaky Blinder episodes, although I did have problems with understanding a few of the lines during Taboo. I enjoy both the series quite a bit, but Taboo dialogue is harder to pickup to my midwestern ear, Peaky Blinders not quite as awkward for me though.

[briantw]

Just now, DireWolfSpirit said:

I havent had any problems with the accents or music volume during Peaky Blinder episodes, although I did have problems with understanding a few of the lines during Taboo. I enjoy both the series quite a bit, but Taboo dialogue is harder to pickup to my midwestern ear, Peaky Blinders not quite as awkward for me though.

I had some issues with Hardy in particular, but no one else.  And with Hardy, it's not his accent so much as the way he just mumbles all of his fucking lines.  He had some hilarious scenes in the newest season of Peaky, though.

[Jez Bell]

1 minute ago, DireWolfSpirit said:

I havent had any problems with the accents or music volume during Peaky Blinder episodes, although I did have problems with understanding a few of the lines during Taboo. I enjoy both the series quite a bit, but Taboo dialogue is harder to pickup to my midwestern ear, Peaky Blinders not quite as awkward for me though.

ah, that's the signature Tom Hardy mumble.  There are also a lot of very local references.  E.g. Leadenhall, which refers to the market where Lloyds of London started and still is today (Zilfa's hubby is an insurance man).

[Mladen]

7 hours ago, Veltigar said:

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  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. 

HBO Go Serbia has Knightfall as part of their offer. I watched full 10 minutes and then I thought "Life is too short to be spent on this"

[PetyrPunkinhead]

Rewatching Golden Girls on Hulu. Haven't seen an episode since I was a kid, so a few observations:
1. Those outfits. Next level 80s.
2. Sophia's personality was explained in the pilot as her having a stroke which affected the part of her brain that controlled politeness.
3. I had zero recollection that Blanche had a gay housekeeper in the pilot that Sophia called the "fancy man."
4. Rose is just like I remembered. Betty White never disappoints.
5. Modern TV has made me forget how how formulaic and condensed sitcoms used to be. Two weddings in the first two episodes. And the series finale, Dorothy meets a guy, gets married, and moves out all in two episodes. 
6. I've watched about six episodes and that theme song never gets old. It's gotta be one of the all-time top 10.
7. Bea Arthur is OG, Tha Godmutha, Queen Bea of Savagery. All hail.

On 1/15/2018 at 11:48 PM, 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, I figured since it pretty much left theaters here immediately. The trailer was great though. I'll still try and catch it on streaming because that premise & cast just seems too good to not watch.

[Chaldanya]

I have burned through Tin Star ( a Sky original) that stared Tim Roth and Christina Hendricks. I really enjoyed it but felt that parts of the story were completely removed from the main theme and can only assume it's to set up something in the second season.

I always enjoy Tim Roth in anything and this is no different even given the short comings of the narrative/pacing.

As a warning it is quite brutal.

[Martini Sigil]

We're really looking forward to S3 of The Path, which starts today... Our other show that we're binging in-between our regular rotation and hockey, is Snatch on Crackle... its kind of fun to watch Rupert Grint as a complete fuck-up whose parents are pornographers .... it's not a great show... but its fun. 

[Jez Bell]

I just finished Godless on Netflix and I am so conflicted.

It was great, up to the finale, and then it all fell apart for me.  Has anyone seen it?

[PetyrPunkinhead]

2 minutes ago, Jez Bell said:

I just finished Godless on Netflix and I am so conflicted.

It was great, up to the finale, and then it all fell apart for me.  Has anyone seen it?

Watched the first three episodes, but haven't gotten back around to finishing it because I'e heard others make the same complaint. Guess I better get it over with soon though or I'll never finish seeing how Lady Mary handles those American outlaws.

[Jez Bell]

22 minutes ago, PetyrPunkinhead said:

Watched the first three episodes, but haven't gotten back around to finishing it because I'e heard others make the same complaint. Guess I better get it over with soon though or I'll never finish seeing how Lady Mary handles those American outlaws.

Lady Mary carries her own, as do many of the other ladies in the cast.  Their stories are compelling enough without the extra drama of the revenge-crazed gang of outlaws. 

It's the messaging that confused me.  Was it meant to be a show about women overcoming extreme adversity without men, or that we need to add some men to the story to make it watchable?  They were all useless and unapologetic for their uselessness, yet the women still swooned over them. 

I'm so confused.

[Mladen]

52 minutes ago, Jez Bell said:

I just finished Godless on Netflix and I am so conflicted.

It was great, up to the finale, and then it all fell apart for me.  Has anyone seen it?

I thought it was amazing. Dockery and Brodie-Sangster were truly outstanding. I adore the "Girls from LaBelle" song.

51 minutes ago, PetyrPunkinhead said:

Watched the first three episodes, but haven't gotten back around to finishing it because I'e heard others make the same complaint. Guess I better get it over with soon though or I'll never finish seeing how Lady Mary handles those American outlaws.

Well, she handled them like her grandmother, Minerva McGonagall handled Snape's ass.

 

[HexMachina]

10 hours ago, dbunting said:

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?

Taboo was Hardy’s own pet project actually so it’s probably more a case of his general success giving him the opportunity to get it made

[Veltigar]

9 hours ago, Astromech said:

It really is a special kind of remarkable. I wanted so badly for it to be good. Oh well, hopefully it ends up at least better than The Bastard Executioner. However,

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that angry mob scene where that one guy blasts that little kid in the face with the rock had me in tears. The editing seemed so bad, as to almost be an extremely late addition after everything was wrapped. The siege soldiers trying to scale the walls of Acre with ladders was also hilarious since the Templars were all mounted and lined up in full battle formation just waiting to charge them.

 

The whole Templar history should be golden material for a TV-series. They made in my opinion the boring decision to make it about the grail, but even then they should have at least been able to create a sort of okay show. But this went next level bad with the way it was filmed, like I would be ashamed to be associated with it as a director.

3 hours ago, Risto said:

HBO Go Serbia has Knightfall as part of their offer. I watched full 10 minutes and then I thought "Life is too short to be spent on this"

But imagine that it ends up like some sort of medieval version of The Room or something... The odds are slim, but it might just be that special!  

[Annara Snow]

10 hours ago, dbunting said:

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?

Nah. Taboo was his passion project, he's an executive producer or something and made it happen, I think it was even his idea. The show is his baby. And I'm sure he had no problems making it happen, as he's Tom freaking Hardy.

4 hours ago, DireWolfSpirit said:

I havent had any problems with the accents or music volume during Peaky Blinder episodes, although I did have problems with understanding a few of the lines during Taboo. I enjoy both the series quite a bit, but Taboo dialogue is harder to pickup to my midwestern ear, Peaky Blinders not quite as awkward for me though.

Just download subtitles in English. They're really easy to find online for pretty much any show. I like to use them whenever I can, to avoid problems with bad sound or actors mumbling their lines.

BTW, I do wonder who makes these subtitles you can find on Opensubtitles etc. Although they're usually fully accurate in terms of what people are saying, some of the directions are pretty hilarious (as when it describes what kind of music is playing), and at least once it was downright inaccurate/ignorant.

I was watching The Americans, and there was an episode where a character from Russia was in Yugoslavia (specifically in Ljubljana, Slovenia) trying to get fake papers to get to USA. When he was at the Yugoslavian border (to Austria, I think), and the border guards were speaking in Serbocroatian, the subtitles said [Speaking Russian]. Who made these subtitles, and just how stupid were they? I don't expect them to recognize which language it is (and it would have been completely understandable if they had thought it was Slovenian), but why the heck would you think that Yugoslavian border guards would be speaking Russian to people exiting the country? Why would they be doing that?

[Mladen]

1 minute ago, Annara Snow said:

BTW, I do wonder who makes these subtitles you can find on Opensubtitles etc. Although they're usually fully accurate in terms of what people are saying, some of the directions are pretty hilarious (as when it describes what kind of music is playing), and at least once it was downright inaccurate/ignorant. I was watching The Americans, and there was an episode where a character from Russia was in Yugoslavia (specifically in Ljubljana, Slovenia) trying to get fake papers to get to USA. When he was at the Yugoslavian border (to Austria, I think), and the border guards were speaking in Serbocroatian, the subtitles said [Speaking Russian]. Who made these subtitles, and just how stupid were they? I don't expect them to recognize which language it is (and it would have been completely understandable if they had thought it was Slovenian), but why the heck would you think that Yugoslavian border guards would be speaking Russian to people exiting the country? Why would they be doing that?

After I read "vosak od bikinija" (wax made of bikini) as a translation of "bikini wax", I decided that English subtitles are gonna save my brain.

5 minutes ago, Veltigar said:

But imagine that it ends up like some sort of medieval version of The Room or something... The odds are slim, but it might just be that special!  

Well, then we would HAVE TO watch it

[Annara Snow]

4 hours ago, Risto said:

HBO Go Serbia has Knightfall as part of their offer. I watched full 10 minutes and then I thought "Life is too short to be spent on this"

How is it compared to Nemanjići?  Better or worse, or the same level of bad? I haven't watched either, but I've seen countless people on Facebook and in the media talking about how utterly awful Nemanjići is.

[Mladen]

1 minute ago, Annara Snow said:

How is it compared to Nemanjići?  Better or worse, or the same level of bad? I haven't watched either, but I've seen countless people on Facebook and in the media talking about how utterly awful Nemanjići is.

I was in Montenegro during the holidays so I missed the premiere. But I want to see that level of awfulness. Even my most patriotic friends were amazed by how bad it is. 

[Annara Snow]

5 minutes ago, Risto said:

I was in Montenegro during the holidays so I missed the premiere. But I want to see that level of awfulness. Even my most patriotic friends were amazed by how bad it is. 

I'll have to check it out just to see how awful it can get, and if it's "so bad it's good" like The Room, or just annoying.

BTW, it currently has a 3.6 rating on IMDB. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2532246/

9 minutes ago, Risto said:

After I read "vosak od bikinija" (wax made of bikini) as a translation of "bikini wax", I decided that English subtitles are gonna save my brain.

LOL Sometimes I think I should go back to using translated subtitles, just for the hilarity of some of the translations. But it would be too distracting. That already happened many times when I was in the cinema or watching TV. The last time I was in the cinema, I watched The Last Jedi and almost groaned aloud at a badly translated line (I can't remember now what it was).

[Mladen]

10 minutes ago, Annara Snow said:

LOL Sometimes I think I should go back to using translated subtitles, just for the hilarity of some of the translations. But it would be too distracting. That already happened many times when I was in the cinema or watching TV. The last time I was in the cinema, I watched The Last Jedi and almost groaned aloud at a badly translated line (I can't remember now what it was).

Well, after watching a movie, I was so annoyed by the translation of the title... THE TITLE? Really? That's where you are going to make a mistake?