Scott_N

On 4/4/2024 at 6:16 PM, IFR said:

right now many of the reactions are that the show is decent enough, but is that it?

Exactly. I liked it well enough despite some weak acting (though I might have been a bit harsh on Cunningham in an earlier post; he did alright once he had more to do second half of the show). I'll watch a second season but I won't be counting down the days.

It was sloppy story telling at times too where I just sat back thinking this just makes no sense. Some reddit-trawling suggests most of those were deliberate show omissions with explanations existing in the books.

On 4/3/2024 at 2:05 AM, TheLastWolf said:

Is Fanny and Alexander Director's Cut worth the runtime?

 

Yes. In all sincerity, I can't really think of anything more worthwhile you could watch.

1 hour ago, Nictarion said:

I thought Cunningham and Wong were both good. 

Fair enough, Wong is always watchable but I'm not sure he is doing much acting. Whenever I see him (not an awful lot, I admit) he seems to play all his characters the same way. It works, to be fair, because he has presence. I don't think the same can be said for Cunningham.

Up to episode four but got so annoyed by the sheer stupidity of everything about that raid I will pause my viewing for awhile. I'm still sufficiently interested in seeing where the story goes to pick it up again later, I think.

Some occasional silliness aside, my only real gripe up until now has been how unconvincing many of the actors are. From the main cast only Jess Hong and Rosalind Chao are good. The rest of the Oxford Five - I can't even be bothered to look up their names - range from forgettable (Saul) to poor (Will, Auggie) to joke (Rooney). Then again, these are all cardboard characters, and this clearly isn't a character-driven show, so maybe it shouldn't matter that much.

What has really piqued my interest from this recent flurry of RoP activity is just what *does* IlyaP actually consider to be bad TV/film? I need to know.

2 hours ago, Zorral said:

 Last night's Reacher episode was a big improvement on the one before it. Also a bit of a twist for a shoot-out, at least location-wise --

  Reveal hidden contents

Have I seen before an assassination attempt at funeral in the cemetery as the body is literally being buried?  Maybe, in a Western, sometime? long ago?

 

After two really good episodes what a comedown that was. That mess should never have been broadcast.

Aside from the forsaken, including the new one, there was hardly anything I liked in this episode. And, of course, even when it comes to the forsaken the rug was pulled from under us. Ishy was nothing at all too fear as it turned out. I still hope he comes back, I suppose, because up until then he, along with Lanfear, have been the stars of the show but having been neutered this easily he won't carry much menace.

A terribly rushed episode where everything seemed to happen just because it needed to happen. Contrived beyond belief.

Ingtar's death was clearly an attempt to create a lasting, emotional moment on screen and feel completely flat.

The Heroes were cringe. Should have come with a trigger-warning for those of us still damaged by that awful Army of the Dead in RotK.

The catapult thing, taking out the entire tower? Awful. 

The Seanchan? What a pathetic excuse for an army.

Lan plucking arrows out the air and single-handedly dropping Seanchan soldiers left, right and centre was just as bad, probably worse, than when the Aiel woman dropped all those whitecloaks. It is stupid and not necessary. He can be a badass without being a superhuman and suspending physics.

Why didn't the Aes Sedai who were in Falme sink the Seanchan fleet when it arrived? Or when it lay at anchor in the harbor? It clearly takes very little effort to do so.

Given Nynaeve's incompetence at dealing with an arrow in the leg, I suspect I'd make a better wisdom. And her 'anxious face' is now seemingly a permanent feature. It just looks like she really needs to go but don't know where she might find a toilet. Writing or acting - not sure where the fault lies.

I've been critical of the Egwene actor but she has done well last half of the season. She seems ridicolously powerful but that's hardly the actor's fault. It does feel like hers is the main arc which is fine but it does make this Dragon dude feel a bit like extra baggage. It has been explained in the show why the Dragon is to be feared but nothing on screen so far has backed that up.

Lastly, it is not much of a prophecy, surely, if anyone - at any time - can just throw a dragon illusion around a tower and, hey, prophecy fulfilled?

Really disappointed. A car-crash season finale.

14 hours ago, Cas Stark said:

I thought this was the best episode of the series so far. 

Agreed. By some margin too.

Maybe it was just me but it felt like less of the spectacle and more about the people, a more relatable level, this episode. Whatever it was it worked really well.

15 minutes ago, IlyaP said:

But yeah, basically, @Scott_N, I'd say nearly everyone is handicapped by the [arguably] simplistic source material. That Pike and Hennesy are as magnetic as they are is a testament to their skills as actors. Hennesy does so much with his eyes and body language, and Pike so much with her face and shoulders and movement. 

Fair points.

18 hours ago, IlyaP said:

The books are kinda...about them, at its core, so, uh, not doing that would be fantastically weird.

Well, quite. The point being they can't carry the show because, as actors, they are just not very good. Which is problematic given the show, as you point out, is about them.

17 hours ago, Maia said:

Not this old canard again. Do you seriously claim that an unarmed man taking out a dozen of these trained, armed and armored warriors like in the book would be any less silly?

No, I do not. That would have annoyed me just as much.

7 hours ago, Arakasi said:

But it’s clear they are constrained budget wise with FX. We saw this last episode with my biggest issue that being the lacklustre girls escape.

Lacklustre does not capture it. It was amongst the cheapest, fakest and silliest scenes I can recall watching on TV. Good lord.

Coming back to Wouter's comment earlier, the Aiel woman, unarmed and I'm guessing weighing 40kg or so, taking out a host of armed and armored professional soldiers was a different kind of silliness. Why does a show-runner feel this is necessary? Do the majority of the audience actually want/like it? There is no need for it to be so over the top, surely.

Surprised at how well received this episode has been. I expect book readers, by virtue of knowing much more, see something different to what's presented to me. It felt low budget YA.

It is still the competence of the senior actors that is holding this thing together. Time spent with the Two Rivers characters actively detracts from the show.

Having caught up with all four episodes over a long flight, I think it is a bit of an improvement on season 1 so far. Damning it with faint praise, I know, but as a non-book reader, I found the first season was poor though not offensively so (as opposed to ROP) possibly thanks to not being able to take umbrage at major plot or character changes.

It's not great, mind. The interesting characters are Moiraine, Liandrin and Ishmael. Lanfear and Logain are also pretty decent so far. These are all played by competent actors which brings me to one of the larger problems for me: The people from the Two Rivers. Who, you know, are not exactly compelling.

Perrin is absolutely awful, genuinely painful to watch. Egwene and Nynaeve are bland and dull (I hold out some hope for Nynaeve but that's more on the basis of season one). Rand I still don't know what to make of. Too early to judge Mat, perhaps, but when he is in scenes with Liandrin or Min he is the lesser presence.

Another large problem is the kumbaya male models that are supposed to be Warders. Just not credible. At all. The Aes Sedai are generally doing better and might be a saving grace going forward if done properly.

I'm not a fan of characters being killed and then coming back to life. Such cop-out story telling and just takes away any jeopardy.

Another thing that bothers me a wee bit is that the powers the Aes Sedai have (and I suppose Rand/Forsaken) are too much. Way beyond superhero territory. How is this dealt with in the books? When a few people wield complete annihilation in their hands, the wider societal power dynamics are just off.

PS. Lindsay Duncan. I could have included her in my second paragraph but I assume (?) she is not an on-going player. But this is what a proper actor brings to a role.

5 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

The interwebs says Chelsea spent somewhere between the 3rd to 5th most money recently and is spending the 3rd most overall in the PL right now.

They have spent €996.59m this season and last. More than the second and third in that table combined (Man Utd and Arsenal at €434.98m and €426.84m, respectively).

https://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/premier-league/einnahmenausgaben/wettbewerb/GB1/plus/0?ids=a&sa=&saison_id=2022&saison_id_bis=2023&nat=&pos=&altersklasse=&w_s=&leihe=&intern=0

I know it's been said but City Primeval really is hugely disappointing. Has anyone read the novel? I.e. is it the story that is the problem? Or is the problem the cast or the characters? The dude who plays the villain is just awful and seems terribly miscast. A pretty boy who smirks a lot.

To be sure, watching it, it does feel like all of the above contributes to the mess. I'm three episodes in and if no 4 is not an obvious improvement I'm out. And Justfied is an all-time favorite!

On 6/19/2023 at 5:29 AM, Tywin et al. said:

I'm not going to try and argue this given I'm a noob with F1, but I will say that the depth of talent across sport has dramatically increased over the last 35 years as far as I can tell.

You are forgiven this one time, man. I have nothing against Verstappen but to suggest he has somehow equaled or eclipsed the heights of Senna demonstrates a glaring lack of knowledge of F1 history (the sport and the drivers).

There are loads of great Senna content out there but here is a good, if not obvious, place to start: https://pca.st/episode/8d2124ad-c18d-4f01-8278-b1d4c21ae5ad

On 5/1/2023 at 11:42 PM, ASOIAFrelatedusername said:

Elephants are a lot smaller than the Mumakil (as portrayed in the movies).

Also, if I recall correctly, only one Elephant made it into Italy.

Hannibal's elephants were North African (now extinct) so even smaller than the African elephants we are used to today. They must have arrived in Spain by crossing the straits though so water transport less hard on them than crossing the Alps.

13 hours ago, Corvinus85 said:

Watched the first episode of Citadel on Amazon, a SF-ish action spy show produced by the Russos, though they're not the main writers. It was very meh. I didn't care to watch the 2nd episode.

The action was nothing special, full of edits, there's a bunch of forced humor and there was nothing in the episode to hook me.

A big budget Amazon show. What could possibly go wrong.

Can't remember where I read it by someone said it's basically a business plan in search of show. That seems to distill Amazon's approach to creativity perfectly.

I too remember being a bit nonplussed by Dylan's win but, on reflection, once you delve into his lyrics and listen/read to the quality he has put out over decades, it seems to me a perfectly deserved win.

I'd be happy for the prize to be awarded to Rushdie or Ngugi. Or course, my true wish is McCarthy wins it, but exceedingly unlikely.

I cannot truly connect with Chinese writers. Mo Yan and Gao Xingjiang are both writers I have been through out of obligation rather than anything else. I believe that is due to an inherent difficulty translating Chinese to English (I cannot read pinyin); more gets lost than in other translations making the translated work inferior to the original.

Marco's end is one of the few things that annoyed me in both book and show. Too quick, too easy. No time for the fact he has lost to sink in. Most unsatisfying.

EW interview with Naren Shankar. I chose to believe in a continuation based on that.

The Expanse showrunner answers series finale burning questions

Happy they stuck the landing and I will really miss this show. It ended well but it somehow seems inconceivable there won't be a continuation of some sort.

On 1/1/2022 at 8:24 AM, karaddin said:

And we got to see more of Camina Drummer unbowed, unbroken, unbent which is worth two seasons on its own. I love most of the cast but of all of them I hope Cara gets some breakout success from it.

"Live shamed, and die empty". Loved it so much I kept rewinding.

I am pleased I have now finished the season. Like LP, I find it difficult to stop watching mid-season even when I actively dislike what I am seeing.

The final episode was no better than what has preceded it. Certainly Jared Harris cannot save it and all the issues with the pacing, tone, storytelling, weak actors/characters were just as frustrating.

I will, however, concede that my earlier, somewhat flippant, observation that Lee Pace just plays Lee Pace was both premature and incorrect. The only storyline of any interest in this show has actually been the Empire-arc (how ironic) and Lee Pace is its saving grace.

I, too, was somehow sure it was an eight episode season and was determined to see it through. Not sure I have the strength for another three.