Veltigar

I also watched the first episode of Masters of the Air and found it rather forgettable. Does it become more compelling after a while?

People have been recommending Severance to me ever since it came out. I finally tried it out and I have to say, it is great. If they can keep up the same quality throughout the seasons (or even better improve some more), this has a big chance of going down as one of the all time greats. I'm always a bit queasy about these mystery shows (there is a big chance that it turns out like Lost), but so far I'm definitely intrigued. I think it was a great idea to frame this device around the workplace, because it is quite recognisable at times. Not sure whether anyone else has that feeling, but there were some aspects of the Lumon culture that were creepily familiar to some real-life places I worked at. Fortunately for me not for a very long time, but I joked with friends who had to stay there for longer and they all agreed about the cultish atmosphere in Severance reminding them of that place. Everything about Severance has been great so far, but I want to give a particular shout out to Tramel Tillman, the actor playing Mr. Milchick. I don't think I have ever seen him in anything before, but he was an absolute delight. For me he's definitely the stand-out performance. It really isn't easy to strike that balance between friendliness and intimidation, but he manages to hit it perfectly every time. My favourite scene was this one in episode 7.

I loved Under the Skin and this film was also well worth my time, so I think I will indeed do my best to watch Sexy Beast and Birth in the near future. Didn't know he did music videos before, but I see on IMDB he's done the Into My Arms video for Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds. That's very cool.

I watched Jonathan Glazer's The Zone of Interest. If you are going to watch it, you already know what it is about, but to safeguard the rare chance that someone walks into this without knowing what it's about, I'll not go into details on the subject matter. In general, I would say that I found it a very unsettling and thought-provoking film. Definitely not something I'll pop in for a casual view, but the way it approached its subject matter so frank and matter-of-factly was illuminating. The way this was shot, with a bunch of stationary camera's all rolling, as if it was a nature documentary really added to the naturalism of the picture. A lot has been said about the sound design, and reading some of the trivia on IMDB, it really was very eery. I think this film will probably be used a lot in history or ethics classes. Definitely worth watching.

I watched Bastarden (English title: The Promised Land), a Danish film starring Mads Mikkelsen (who else). It tells the story of a captain of humble origins who, after concluding his military career (the film is set in the back half of the 18th century), seeks to tame the Danish heather and make it ready for settlement. As this was the pet project of the Danish King, success meant ennoblement and sundry other rewards, but alas, the local dignitaries do not want a new colony in their spheres of influence. Enter the central conflict of the film between Mads' character and a particularly heinous young landowner. All in all, I was very glad to have seen it. The film is not particularly original, from the basic description above you know what you are going to get, but it is executed very well. What is particularly nice about it, is the fact that it is abundantly clear that this is not an American film. There are several rather graphic elements that I think would not make it in a sanitised American flick. The performances were all great of course, but what else can you expect with Mads Mikkelsen in the lead. He really bolts the plot of this entire film down, which is quite a lot of work, because they don't kid around with the number of subplots in the film. The film is delightfully abrupt with some of those, but if you didn't buy into the central performance, I think it would be hard to enjoy it. I wish more actors would go back and forth between these type of smaller films and blockbusters. In case of Mads Mikkelsen, he has of course more incentive to do so, since he's usually the villain in Hollywood, while he can play heroic characters in Danish films. Still on principle, it's nice to see that exchange of talent and ideas between various cinema's. If you get the chance to see Bastarden, I'd definitely recommend it.

I finished my rewatch of Avatar: The Last Airbender. Interesting experience, since I last saw it many years ago. It's interesting to see the entire series in chronological order and it turned out somewhat different than I expected. I had anticipated book 1 to be a bit of a chore (which is why I didn't do this rewatch earlier I guess), with book 2 and book 3 being stellar. On my rewatch however, I found book 1 to be much better than I remembered. Sure, there are some unsophisticated episodes, but the whole was definitely a fair bit better than my memory gave it credit for. Book 2 is the best season, that was always what I remembered, and I stick with that after my rewatch. The one, let's say sour note, is book 3. I actually thought it weaker than what I remembered. Some of it was the remaining childish humour that doesn't mesh well with the seriousness of that last season, some was the underwhelming reveal of Ozai, but mostly I think I didn't like this final season much because it felt rushed. There were quite a few story beats that I think were rather good ideas, but were poorly executed, mainly due to a lack of time. For example, I felt that the following plot points deserved more episodes Now I think they did a reasonably good job given the time constraints, but it does feel a bit sloppy, as if they tried to cram to much content into one book. It does make me slightly hopeful that Netflix's live-action adaptation might have a reason to exist, as it could perhaps give that final season more depth, but I remain doubtful.

I just love that this thread is already at 25 pages, but keeps on growing because no one is willing to tarnish their board credentials by starting a new one XD

I finished Castlevania Nocturne today. Not as good as I had hoped, but still watchable. I really like the art style, the fact that it doesn't hesitate to be weird, and I have enough fond memories of the original adaptation to stick around for a while, but I do hope they'll put some more care in their plotting. Every character in this seems to be suicidal, the way they (repeatedly) walk into the same suicidal plan was kind of baffling to see. From a character and plot perspective, they could do better. That's mostly a good thing in my book though. I feel like for American films at least, there is a lot of pressure to release in as many markets simultaneously as possible (probably to combat piracy), which I like because I don't want to wait endless months to see a film and miss out on all the good discussion. It's actually one of the major disadvantages for other film industries (except for perhaps the Indian blockbusters, we get those pretty much simultaneously with India over here), since you sometimes see a great film from e.g. Poland or Denmark or anywhere really gather buzz, but then you never know what kind of release window it will have in your market. A little bit sad to see McNamara isn't part of this reunion. He works wonderful with Stone and he elevates Lanthimos imo. I still haven't seen Killing of the Sacred Deer, but The Lobster was not as good as Poor Things and The Favourite imo (still enjoyable of course). Sad you didn't like that scene, I actually thought that film could use some more explicitness like that, given the fact that it Agreed on what you write about Poor Things though, and I find it a sign of strength that it just immediately draws you into its world. I look forward to seeing some good video essays about everything going on in there

Glad you like it. I feel like it's a bit underseen at the moment, which is a shame for a great film like this. If only the bolded could be arranged. I'd love to see a new attempt to bring Flashman to the big screen. McNamara would have to adapt one of the later Flashman novels though, one of those where Flashman interacts with a famous woman from history, as it does feel like McNamara is especially interested in (and good at) writing meaty parts for women (as evidenced by The Great, Poor Things, The Favourite and arguably even Cruella). I like Oppenheimer (and what I'm about to write is mostly the same text I could write about Killers of the Flower Moon), but I didn't love it mostly because I didn't feel like it pushed the envelop in the way something like Poor Things does. It's excessively long, elides some of the moral complexity in Oppenheimer's story despite of this length, and it just feels a little bit safe in comparison to a film like Poor Things. It is indeed very competently made and the performances are great, but the whole doesn't transcend the sum of its parts in my opinion. I think it's actually easier to illustrate what I mean by referring to Killers of the Flower Moon

Enjoying a problematic piece of entertainment is not the same as loving said piece of entertainment, but here we go with yet another misrepresentation. A rather crucial one at that. If you wish to understand why certain people follow ideologies you do not condone on an intellectual level, it doesn't hurt looking at the propaganda that influenced them to break that way. Every propagandic piece of entertainment is build out of two layers, an intellectual and emotional one (roughly content and form). The target audience is usually unable to separate the two, gets overwhelmed by the emotions in a film and then soaks in the harmful intellectual arguments. Since the form of the message is what opens up the audience, it's good to understand what about the form appeals to people. If you find the ideological content abhorrent, than understanding the form helps you firstly, to design better counter arguments if you seek to do so, and secondly allows you to understand the level of danger. To use Fighter to illustrate the latter point, by Indian standards, this is a pretty expensive film, it is also competently made and released on a lot of screens (even outside of India). The fact that it carries such a scary message is a lot more concerning than coming across a shitty meme on social media that evokes the same message. The shitty meme might have been generated by a lone looney in their basement, but a film like Fighter is a gargantuan task, which could only be pulled off with assistance from the Indian Ministry of Defence and their Air Force. That's a pretty clear sign that we should be actively worried about the state India is in right now. Hmm, I get what you are saying, and I think you are right up to point. We shouldn't be surprised that the dominant sociological perspective is represented in a lot of films. It is an expensive, collective art form after all, so in a market-driven system like the U.S. naturally that's where the resources are. That being said, even in the American system (let alone the old Soviet or contemporary Chinese/Indian/etc. cinemas) a long tradition of blatantly ideological film making does exist. There are many reasons for that, but one obvious one, illustrated by both Fighter and Top Gun films, is the fact that the state has more money to blow than any other entity out there, and film makers tend to drift towards whatever can give them the resources necessary to create a successful film. There has been a lot of reporting over the last two years about the cosy relationship between the Department of Defence and Hollywood for instance:

Exceedingly fair point for the bolded, I should have expressed myself better Yeah, I needed a long break after Blade of Tyshalle, and I did read two other books between Caine Black Knife and Caine's Law. It's definitely beneficial to my enjoyment to do it this way.

Sigh, I shouldn't respond to this lazy attempt at trolling, but I cannot help myself. You know it is perfectly possible to enjoy a piece of entertainment on a spectacle level, while still understanding how fucked up the ideological underpinnings of said piece of entertainment is right? Which is what my review is explicitly saying, but thank you for just lazily cherry picking some quotations. Always insightful to see a contribution like this. I didn't see a full trailer before hand (the teaser trailer is much better imo), but I just looked it up and it's a terrible trailer. It spoils a lot of the best action and dance shots in the film, as well as some plot points. I'm not sure who is included in your 'we', but I sadly have to admit that I share your worries. Realpolitik is one thing, but condoning/facilitating democratic backsliding is quite another. It doesn't seem like a solid foundation to resist the challenge of illiberal systems on the long term. I enjoyed the action and dancing in Fighter, but it certainly is not in the same league as Potemkin in terms of innovation. Still, it's an interesting show of Indian political sensibilities anno 2024.

Well, you are in luck then, because I just finished Caine's Law a couple of hours ago. I'm still processing it, but I got to say I liked it a lot. I preferred this to Caine Black Knife and certainly Blade of Tyshalle (which is my least favourite of the tetralogy). The difficult question is whether or not I rate it higher than Heroes Die. I absolutely commend the ambition behind this fourth novel. It definitely feels like the book Stover perhaps always wanted to write, and he's definitely in fine form throughout. The knotty nature of the plot, the way he goes all in on his characters, and manages to add to his lore without having the book crumble under the weight of all the high concepts he's introducing is genuinely impressive. Some of it does feel like he's retconning earlier events, particularly in Blade of Tyshalle. Perhaps it's my own bias speaking here, but I did not enjoy the turn the second book took (I felt like the high concepts introduced there broke the camel's back). It feels to me as if this fourth novel (and the third before it) are corrections in a way. Like, there is a lot of high concept stuff in this novel, but I find it much more bearable since it's grounded in the genuinely touching relationships Caine has forged with That was in my opinion not the case for Blade of Tyshalle, which also featured a way too whiny Caine. In Caine's Law he's definitely more mature and the writing brings that of convincingly. There are of course still points of improvement. I felt like the ending was quite rushed, and I feel like some characters would have benefitted from more exposure earlier on (perhaps ideally in the previous novel Caine Black Knife) I also think that if I were to make an adaptation of this, I would slightly simplify things All in all, definitely a great series, and I am glad to have read it. I got to admit, that's a hard pitch. Not really into that kind of thing, but perhaps I'll consider it over time After all, it took me like 10 years to finally order the Caine books XD

I went to see Fighter, India's answer to Top Gun. Boys and girls, if you thought the American original was already too militaristic for your taste, you'll definitely lose your marbles over this one. The film feels like what would happen if Bollywood's answer to James Wong saw Top Gun Maverick and then asked India's answer to Joseph Goebbels to write the screenplay. I can't remember the last time I have seen such a nakedly jingoistic and spiteful film. It's not quite the original Birth of a Nation, but I do think it comes close to what it must have felt like to watch Triump des Willens back in 1935. This film is brash, loud and pretty awesome to see. My friends and I had a blast, and so did the rest of the audience, which were pretty much all Indian expats. The dance numbers were slick, the humour was pretty good, and the jet action was nicely done. It also had a surprisingly "original" plot, in the sense that I was expecting a pretty straight Maverick rip-off, but it really was its own thing (except for the actor playing the main character's CO who looks like a plastic surgeon took Tom Skerrit from Top Gun and gave him an Indian make over). Which of course makes sense, because the American Top Gun films don't really have a clear antagonist. Maverick struggles against himself, his past choices, and the strictures of military life but the actual bogies he fights at the end are always an afterthought. The originals even refuse to identify them. This is not the case for Indian Top Gun. As a matter of fact, it has a clear idea of who the enemy is, and it wants you to know its Pakistan, the Kashmiri independence movement, and to be frank, Muslims in general. It also wants you to know that "India" (between quotation marks, because it's clear that they want you to equate India to Hindus) is absolutely not to blame for any of the conflicts and can claim the moral high ground without any blushing. Oh, and of course that the Indian Government and especially Prime Minister Modi are awesome. It was an interesting film to see, especially since the audience I saw it with was comprised mostly of Indian expats and members of the Indian diaspora. I liked the action and songs, but frankly, I'm a bit worried that a major ally of the west is creating this kind of propaganda film. Thank you, I'm so glad that I'm not the only one who can't get over the villains poor financial understanding

Most definitely, which makes the others even dumber since there is less money to go around for them. That's the insane thing about this plot though, how on earth could anyone think they'd get away with something like this? If planes had started going down (especially planes carrying important people), than the full resources of Uncle Sam would have been dedicated to finding those responsible. There is no way such a vast conspiracy within the confines of one defence contractor would not have been discovered. Especially if so many people within the security team (who seem to have had a sketchy past) all of a sudden seemed to have come into a lot of money. Perhaps I would be milder in my assessment if the rest of the series had taken more care to work within the limits of my suspension of disbelief, but with everything else going on, this was just too much for me.

The season finale of Reacher season 2 has more endings than Return of the King. None of them were any good sadly, but they kept trying to see what would stick I guess. As pointed out earlier, the villains in this season are the dumbest bunch of assholes ever cobbled together. I don't know if anyone is counting, but Reacher and company must have killed like twenty conspirators. Not taking into account operational costs, these idiots were risking their life for at most 3.25 million USD a pop. Great money if you can earn it legally, but to get involved in terrorism in such a way that you will get killed or incarcerated for life as result it really is chump money. I was also unpleasantly surprised by the whole plot about I'm not entirely sure whether I'll return next season. Perhaps I'll still binge it when its all done, as that works better for this show imo. What I do know is that it sadly isn't must watch tv, which it might have become if the second had mimicked the quality of that first season.

I had the good fortune to attend a screening of Poor Things yesterday. It's a marvellous film and without a doubt my favourite film to be in contention for the 2023 award season. I am still processing everything I liked about it, but for those of you who have not seen it, you should all do yourself the favour of watching it in theatre as soon as possible. I could sing the film's praises for several paragraphs, but I think the biggest compliment of all is that it struck me as a wholly original piece of cinema. The basic story has been done before and there are shades of Tim Burton and Wes Anderson in it, but this film manages to blend it all together in ways that excited me about cinema as an art form. This is not a feeling that I am accustomed to, and I certainly can't think of any other film that managed to hit the same notes for me that came out in 2023. The people who made this together really are at the top of their game. Lanthimos has come a long way from his first film Dog Tooth (which I disliked tremendously, but which I'm willing to give another shot after seeing Poor Things), McNamara is the only recent screenwriter I can think of who has become a brand on its own (between this, The Favourite and the tv-series The Great he has made some of the most original content of the last couple of years) and Emma Stone rightly deserves to win all the acting awards for her turn as Bella. In fact, Cillian Murphy should praise God above that there are separate acting categories for male and female performances, because Emma Stone would have smoked him effortlessly. All the other performances were also incredible. Willem Dafoe was tender and brutish, Ruffalo hilarious and even the bit characters were memorable. I also adored the aesthetic of this film. The score, the cinematography (I'm not familiar with Robbie Ryan's other work, but he definitely merits attention), set dressing and costumes were not only brilliant in their own right, they also seamlessly blended together in a self-reinforcing whole. This is what cinema is all about!

For me it goes back and forth. I just finished episode 7 last night and for some reason I thought that was better than what came before (a lot better than 6 actually) or at least more enjoyable Certainly, the 7th episode had the first original kill in a while Another thing that keeps bothering me, even though this episode was more enjoyable

I'm glad to see that I'm not the only one having issues with this season. I figured as much since I didn't see much about the recent episodes on here. Always a bad sign if the discussion runs into a lull.

Due to travel and other books, it took me longer than expected, but I finally got around to reading Caine Black Knife. I definitely preferred it over Blade of Tyshalle (As an aside, I don't even remember why they call Caine that, can anyone explain?), but I'm not so sure about where it stands compared to Heroes Die. Overall, I enjoyed it, although I definitely was more engaged by the flashbacks than the actual "present day" plot. Perhaps a lot of that plot will pay off in the (weird as far as everyone seems to think) fourth book, but I keep on thinking that Stover's a writer who bites of more than he can chew. The flashbacks in this novel basically serve as an illustration of his main strength as a writer. He writes great action set pieces and his characterization, particularly of Caine is engrossing. He does quickly lose me when he tries to go for more intricate plotting and, in general, I think his prose tends towards the purple. Some of the jumps or reasoning this book takes, mostly in its present-day plot, are kind of difficult to follow. Curious to see how it ends, although I will probably read something else in between.

I watched episode 6 of Reacher. It was kind of boring. I still have seven to watch, but it's beginning to feel a bit like a chore.

I know right, you do not want to wait for this. But the most important thing is that it's coming Luckily, I got something for you to fill that Top Gun 3 shaped void in your hearth: Indian Top Gun is a thing and it is coming to a cinema near you on the 25th of January 2024. Don't hide in that closet DMC, come into the light and play some volleyball with us

Ladies and gentlemen, the title of this thread might no longer be accurate: https://www.theguardian.com/film/2024/jan/12/tom-cruise-third-top-gun-movie-miles-teller-glen-powell Best news of 2024 so far

I had a problem with that as first as well

As @horangi also points out, it does feel like this season got significantly dumber than the first season. It might just be the difference between being able to binge v. having to watch on a weekly basis, but I do think it's more than that. I think this season doesn't really bother hiding the fact that it's basically pulp, whereas the first season was more invested in keeping the stupidity from being too noticeable We'll see how it evolves throughout the season. If it stays at this level I think I'd probably still continue watching, but preferably binge season 3 after it finishes. We're basically in Edward v. Jacob territory now, but I would argue that