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

[Theda Baratheon]

3 hours ago, Ramsay B. said:

I've been on a documentary kick lately on Netflix. I watched Who Took Johnny which was interesting and infuriating at the same time, The Imposter was just surreal, and From One Second to the Next which is a short Herzog doc taking on texting and driving from all angles that was pretty impactful. Gonna continue watching more Herzog ones as I also enjoyed Grizzly Man and Into the Abyss.

I took my neice to see The Lego Batman Movie yesterday. It was funny as hell and really good. So there was a dad there with his 2 daughters and he was looking at his phone the entire time. The screen was on its lowest setting and I would only see it at certain angles, and I usually am never shy about telling people to shut up or put their phones away, but I didn't say anything because there were kids everywhere talking and stuff. So what's the protocol for kids movies? Does anything go?

Watched Tickled!!! 

[Mark Antony]

3 hours ago, Mexal said:

I thought it was awesome. Agreed on the eye rolling moments, especially in the beginning, but once he got to Rome, it got amazing. So many head shots.

Yeah all the Rome bits were fucking great. 

[Castel]

9 hours ago, HelenaExMachina said:

Peaky Blinders season 3 maintains the quality IMO, if not improves it.

 

I thought S3 was a bit too much like a half-baked political thriller tbh. That genre shift didn't do it any favors .

 

6 hours ago, Mark Antony said:

John Wick 2 was super entertaining. Some eye roll moments and maybe not as good as the first but still very enjoyable.

John Wick was great. It was like the action of Bourne and Raid without the shaky-cam and the locations of a Bond film.

I can't really remember many eye-rolling moments besides the long catwalking scene of a certain character he has to deal with early. We get it, everything is cool and European. 

To me it's a bit like The Raid sequel (JW is the closest Hollywood comes really): I personally think it's a better film with a more expanded aesthetic palette (this is less notable for John Wick since the first one had a good enough budget, compared to The Raid 1) but some people think it lacks the focus of the original and may bloat a bit. 

The first action scene in the prologue is the only one I felt may have gone on a little too long. I liked the rest of the film.

 

[Nictarion]

Keanu Reeves deserves a ton of praise for all the stunts and gun choreography he learned for these films too. He makes that shit look good.

[Ramsay B.]

4 hours ago, Theda Baratheon said:

Watched Tickled!!! 

Ha. I actually just saw a trailer for that somewhere (maybe HBO?). It does look weird as hell, but intriguing too.

ETA: Yup, it's coming to HBO here in 2 weeks. I'll watch it.

[Argonath Diver]

3 hours ago, Nictarion said:

Keanu Reeves deserves a ton of praise for all the stunts and gun choreography he learned for these films too. He makes that shit look good.

Yeah, I saw several videos showing the intense as hell training he was in. It was fascinating. You're absolutely right that being able to use the actor, and not a stuntman, not to mention his athleticism really looking superb, made those fights so much more visceral than the confusing Bourne style. You could really get a sense of his absolute precision, with the gunwork and hand-to-hand.

My younger brother is a total Asian action maniac, and insists this had the best fight work in any American movie he's ever seen. And he's about as highly-opinionated (ie, he's a bit of a fucking dickhead about it) an action snob that I respect his opinion greatly. 

The bits of humorous and/or absurd hyperviolence knitted together the extended technical work so well. It really was a sight.

Wish I'd been in Central park to see them filming that coordinated part.

[sperry]

Made in America, the OJ documentary is free on Watch ESPN right now, so I watched that. It is phenomenal, I watched the full 8 hours over 2 days and couldn't put it down, or whatever the tv-watching appropriate phrase would be.

[Channel4s-JonSnow]

On 11/02/2017 at 7:33 PM, Nictarion said:

Huh? Braveheart and Apocalypto are both amazing. Never seen Passion of the Christ. Anyway don't listen to one negative review. Everyone I've talked to that's seen Hacksaw Ridge has ranged between liking it to loving it. I fall more in the latter. I haven't seen people that moved coming out of a movie in a long time. 

I can see how people would like Hacksaw Ridge, but maybe it just says something about me that I've seen too many war movies and see their tropes as impossible to do with a straight face any more, but Mel used almost every one of them in his movie and didn't use a hint of irony in any of it. There were so many re-used bits of other movies in there, so many unoriginal ideas and so much audience manipulation that I came out with a bad taste in my mouth. But at the same time those things are often what gives people a positive reaction to a movie. 


Anyway, I watched Passengers and Jackie this weekend. 2 decent movies. Passengers got a lot of hatred when it came out for its 'rapey' themes but I'm not understanding where that is coming from, must have been some built up clickbait controversy, because its story makes perfect sense. 

My wife loved Jackie, which I assumed she would, its the sort of movie she would enjoy greatly, but it didn't really do very much for me, it felt a little empty in some way, although I thought Portman was great, maybe the best I've seen her since Leon. I've been thinking she turned out to not be a very good actress, but then she does something that reminds you she actually knows what shes doing. 

Also currently watching season 3 of House of Cards. Its amazing how much it seems to tie into the Trump era already, although right now I'd much prefer Frank Underwood to be in charge.

 

[dbunting]

11 hours ago, Argonath Diver said:

Yeah, I saw several videos showing the intense as hell training he was in. It was fascinating. You're absolutely right that being able to use the actor, and not a stuntman, not to mention his athleticism really looking superb, made those fights so much more visceral than the confusing Bourne style. You could really get a sense of his absolute precision, with the gunwork and hand-to-hand.

My younger brother is a total Asian action maniac, and insists this had the best fight work in any American movie he's ever seen. And he's about as highly-opinionated (ie, he's a bit of a fucking dickhead about it) an action snob that I respect his opinion greatly. 

The bits of humorous and/or absurd hyperviolence knitted together the extended technical work so well. It really was a sight.

Wish I'd been in Central park to see them filming that coordinated part.

I saw some of those Reeves training videos as well. He really put in hours and hours of training with real weapons and tactics so that what he does on screen looks authentic(as much as it can in a shoot em up movie).

I watched this Saturday morning, first showing and the theatre was half full, which is huge for that time of day. I was mildly shocked. I always go around that time because it's empty and I am cheap! I have only seen a few movies at that time of day with that many people in it so I figured it did well in the box office and it did.

I loved the movie itself, was very similar in feeling to the first one. Still love that he does head shots on everyone, gotta make sure they are dead! IMO this was light years better than the last Bond and Bourne movies. Nothing says John Wick like the on screen subtitles. I am all about a third one, not too sure on a tv series prequel (couldn't see anyone else as Wick) unless it was Netflix type of show. I wouldn't want the violence toned down for tv.

[Mexal]

2 hours ago, Channel4s-JonSnow said:

Anyway, I watched Passengers and Jackie this weekend. 2 decent movies. Passengers got a lot of hatred when it came out for its 'rapey' themes but I'm not understanding where that is coming from, must have been some built up clickbait controversy, because its story makes perfect sense. 

 It's a legitimate gripe. I thought the movie was fine but I think it would have been infinitely better if they didn't make the decision to tell the story they did.

[Channel4s-JonSnow]

18 minutes ago, Mexal said:

 It's a legitimate gripe. I thought the movie was fine but I think it would have been infinitely better if they didn't make the decision to tell the story they did.

I'm not sure I understand the grip to be honest.. that WAS the story they were telling and was the only reasonably interesting aspect of the movie. 

My main gripe with the movie was the last 3rd which was pretty formulaic and had a bunch of contrivances shoved in to get towards a slightly undeserved happy ending.

[Mexal]

6 minutes ago, Channel4s-JonSnow said:

I'm not sure I understand the grip to be honest.. that WAS the story they were telling and was the only reasonably interesting aspect of the movie. 

My main gripe with the movie was the last 3rd which was pretty formulaic and had a bunch of contrivances shoved in to get towards a slightly undeserved happy ending.

 

Spoiler

You're right that's the story they chose to tell and as a result, people didn't like it. I get it. You have two main characters. You have this attempt at them falling in love. And at the heart of it all is a lie of such selfish proportion, where he chose to purposely destroy her life because he was lonely, that it's really hard for a viewer to root for their love, their survival or him at all. I don't think it was "rapey" but I do think the expectations the movie was supposed to deliver were undercut by a terrible decision early on and not handled sufficiently well to overcome. In his situation, I might have made the same choice, so I got it, but I can understand, people hating it. I personally thought it was just ok.

Agreed with the last third. Thought he should have died at the end. I get they needed to force her to make the choice herself and that it would have been infinitely worse if he woke her up only to die and force her to be alone for the rest of her life but I still thought it was cheesy and unearned.

 

[Channel4s-JonSnow]

46 minutes ago, Mexal said:

 

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You're right that's the story they chose to tell and as a result, people didn't like it. I get it. You have two main characters. You have this attempt at them falling in love. And at the heart of it all is a lie of such selfish proportion, where he chose to purposely destroy her life because he was lonely, that it's really hard for a viewer to root for their love, their survival or him at all. I don't think it was "rapey" but I do think the expectations the movie was supposed to deliver were undercut by a terrible decision early on and not handled sufficiently well to overcome. In his situation, I might have made the same choice, so I got it, but I can understand, people hating it. I personally thought it was just ok.

Agreed with the last third. Thought he should have died at the end. I get they needed to force her to make the choice herself and that it would have been infinitely worse if he woke her up only to die and force her to be alone for the rest of her life but I still thought it was cheesy and unearned.

 

Spoiler

Agree on one level, that the decision to create a love story out of such a dark motivation was mishandled. The movie was essentially asking us to put ourselves in his shoes and see if we'd do the same thing, I think most people probably would. That was a very interesting question, but the way the movie answered it was the real problem. 

That it devolved into a corny redemption tale by the end ruined the hard work the premise set out, and all we really got was a standard Hollywood answer that doing a good thing basically rights all previous wrongs. Which isn't all that true.

 

 

[Mexal]

41 minutes ago, Channel4s-JonSnow said:

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Agree on one level, that the decision to create a love story out of such a dark motivation was mishandled. The movie was essentially asking us to put ourselves in his shoes and see if we'd do the same thing, I think most people probably would. That was a very interesting question, but the way the movie answered it was the real problem. 

That it devolved into a corny redemption tale by the end ruined the hard work the premise set out, and all we really got was a standard Hollywood answer that doing a good thing basically rights all previous wrongs. Which isn't all that true.

 

 

Yea, I agree with all that. Think it's why a lot of people were let down by the movie, myself included. As I said, it was ok (mostly because of the visuals and I like Lawrence/Pratt), but the points you just made are the real issue with the film which unfortunately is the plot.

[Theda Baratheon]

18 hours ago, Ramsay B. said:

Ha. I actually just saw a trailer for that somewhere (maybe HBO?). It does look weird as hell, but intriguing too.

ETA: Yup, it's coming to HBO here in 2 weeks. I'll watch it.

Totally worth it. Very weird! But we'll made documentary. 

[williamjm]

I watched Moneyball. I was a bit curious whether it would work for someone who knows little about baseball other than a vague idea of the rules. I thought it was a well-made film with decent acting and good dialogue but overall I found the plot to be interesting rather than compelling. While I was curious to see how well their plan would work out, I didn't really care much about whether the characters (and therefore the team) won or not, other than maybe Jonah Hill's character most of the other characters didn't seem particularly likeable. It might be impressive that they managed to outperform their opponents on a tiny budget by using clever statistical analysis, but it didn't feel very dramatic. I thought it was worth watching, but I doubt I'd watch it again.

[DunderMifflin]

19 minutes ago, williamjm said:

I watched Moneyball. I was a bit curious whether it would work for someone who knows little about baseball other than a vague idea of the rules. I thought it was a well-made film with decent acting and good dialogue but overall I found the plot to be interesting rather than compelling. While I was curious to see how well their plan would work out, I didn't really care much about whether the characters (and therefore the team) won or not, other than maybe Jonah Hill's character most of the other characters didn't seem particularly likeable. It might be impressive that they managed to outperform their opponents on a tiny budget by using clever statistical analysis, but it didn't feel very dramatic. I thought it was worth watching, but I doubt I'd watch it again.

I sort of know about baseball and I hated this movie. I usually love both Brad Pitt and Jonas Hill.

I guses the dramatic part is while Billy B still hasn't won a world series, most of the rest of the baseball world is fully on board with the moneyball strategy. 

[Lord of Rhinos]

8 hours ago, Channel4s-JonSnow said:

  Hide contents

Agree on one level, that the decision to create a love story out of such a dark motivation was mishandled. The movie was essentially asking us to put ourselves in his shoes and see if we'd do the same thing, I think most people probably would. That was a very interesting question, but the way the movie answered it was the real problem. 

That it devolved into a corny redemption tale by the end ruined the hard work the premise set out, and all we really got was a standard Hollywood answer that doing a good thing basically rights all previous wrongs. Which isn't all that true.

 

 

I liked Passengers a lot.  It explores an idea that only works in a SF setting and uses it to ask some questions about what makes people tick. I don't see the ending as corny.  The whole saving the ship plot is more about putting in some action and stakes then redeeming Jim. The important character beat is when Aurora thinks Jim is going to die and exclaims "You die, I die".  Which is literally true.  Jim seems like a pretty resourceful and independent person, but after a year alone he's getting close to offing himself.  Social butterfly Aurora is going to off herself much quicker than that.  Once Aurora has the option of going back into hibernation she realizes exactly what that means for Jim.  He'll keep going for a little while but the loneliness will eventually wear him down and he'll commit suicide.  Which again is an idea that only works in SF. Aurora is certain Jim will die if she goes back into hibernation, and this creates some interesting moral complicity in the question of what going back to sleep might mean.

[Werthead]

On 12/02/2017 at 9:59 PM, Nictarion said:

Keanu Reeves deserves a ton of praise for all the stunts and gun choreography he learned for these films too. He makes that shit look good.

Reeves totally commits 100% to what he's doing. Very intense actor. Maybe it's because in his early career he turned in some less-than-stellar performances and is now making up for it.

He's 52 years old and looks far more convincing doing these kind of film and stunts than Tom Cruise does.

[Teng Ai Hui]

Just watched Last Week Tonight. Another get episode from John Oliver. I really missed him during his 2 month hiatus. I'm anxious to discover the impact made by those ads featured at the end of the episode.