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Watch, Watched, Watching: The Good, Bad and Ugly


Zorral

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I saw two movies today. The first one was the last Expandables, which was on while I was listlessly channel surfing. This was actually a really shitty movie. Never thought I could get annoyed by Banderas, but boy was his character a dud. A shame that that franchise never reached its full potential, because the idea behind it was pretty solid.

The second film I saw was How To Lose a Guy in Ten Days, which shockingly is 15 years old. I remember seeing this film as a kid and I feel old now. I have to admit that I enjoyed it a lot. It's better than most romantic comedies and the central idea that puts the film's plot in motion is pretty neat when you think about it. McConaughey and Kate Hudson have great chemistry and I really like their stay in Staten Island. Some of the crazy things Kate Hudson's character does in this film to have McConaughey's character dump here are also very inspired. I don't know who came up with

Spoiler

the idea of the composite baby photo's

, but I hope that person got a nice fat pay check. The ending is a bit rote. I actually think it could have used some more time, but all in all it's pretty delightful in a sugary sweet, kitchy sort of way.

 

EDIT: I also only realised today that Matthew McConaughey's character drives a Triumph Bonneville in this. I really love that bike, I wonder if it imprinted on me while I was younger because of this film :p  

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Just finished Bosch... it was a strong season... now we've done four episodes of Safe... which is a good show, but kind of weird... its a drama about a missing kid, and it has a semi-comedic sub-plot with a wacky family and a daughter who looks just like Snookie.... but it works. 

I'm just surprised more people on this forum aren;t yammering about Killing Eve.... we here at Casa Martini are loving this show.

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Watched The Looming Tower at the weekend (dramatisation of events leading up to 9/11). Overall I thought it was very good. At times it's hard to differentiate clearly between low(er) production values and the show being set almost 20 years ago. There were a couple of iffy bits which were supposedly filmed in the UK which look NOTHING like what they're meant to be (an 'English pub' scene which looked just like an American bar (to us it looked like an American 'Irish' bar - which again never look like actual Irish pubs) and a scene meant to be in a street in Manchester - which actually looks like a street in America. I don't know, it's like they didn't try very hard to make those bits look right. Anyway, those are minor quibbles.

They did a decent job of showing what it's like to be involved in relationships with people who can't talk about their work, as well as the rigidity of following the chain of command and how serious it is to breach protocol. It's depressing as fuck to watch though. Regardless of whether failure of CIA/FBI (to work together) had led to a successful terrorist attack it is still terrifying to think that all of those decisions can hinge on one single person's interpretation of 'doing the right thing' - and nobody seemed to have oversight of their work and they never really had to defend their decisions to anyone other than a single doting manager who was just like 'yeah, you're really good at your job, so just carry on and do whatever you think is right'.

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Finally got to see The Last Jedi.  I was surprised at how bad it was - Force Awakens was much of a redo, this was as well and lumped on to it some wildly stupid premises.

Was so disappointed, especially after Rogue 1, was hoping we'd see an upswing in those. Hopefully Solo doesn't suck.

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10 minutes ago, Knight of Ashes said:

American Gods, finally.

 

Funny, season two just went into production last week. Which was some welcome news actually, I was a bit concerned it would be cancelled after the hoopla over people leaving.

what do you think so far?

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7 minutes ago, Triskele said:

I have to say that I've been largely disappointed with this season of Silicon Valley, and I've historically loved this show.   Just feel like this season dropped off a cliff a bit.  But I did think last night's was strong.  

I've enjoyed this season.  The show seems like it's stayed pretty much as funny as ever despite losing one of its funniest cast members, so that speaks to the writing and the other actors.  Matt Ross in particular has been great this season and has picked up some of the comedic slack in his expanded role.

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6 hours ago, HelenaExMachina said:

Funny, season two just went into production last week. Which was some welcome news actually, I was a bit concerned it would be cancelled after the hoopla over people leaving.

what do you think so far?

Well, there's always this period of adjustment whenever a book one loves gets adapted.  But the show for the most part, is almost wilder than the book and I oftened found myself wondering what I'd make of it if I had never red the book.

I like what they've done with Laura and Sweeney and most of the rest.(they did a better job with Audrey's grief than Gaiman did ).

Too bad it didn't end with Wednesday revealing himself on House on the Rock but that had something to do with budget constraints?

Too bad Gillian Anderson left.

And I love the introduction. It's everything the Transformers should've been but wasn't.:P:P

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On 5/12/2018 at 5:28 AM, Veltigar said:

Redlettermedia just published a video in their review section about The Guest, in which the screenwriter came to talk to them. Naturally, I watched that episode and rewatched The Guest. It really is an awesome film and I was sad to learn that it apparently bombed at the box office. This is why we can't have nice things.

Jesus man,what the hell? You made me waste 100 minutes of my life! :P This is a bad movie.Period.

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4 hours ago, AncalagonTheBlack said:

Jesus man,what the hell? You made me waste 100 minutes of my life! :P This is a bad movie.Period.

Well, from my point of view, the Jedi are evil! :P Seriously though, I'm sorry you didn't like it. I never realised this was such a divisive movie. I guess this is like Only God Forgives all over again, I sometimes feel like I'm the only one who likes that as well. 

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6 hours ago, Knight of Ashes said:

Well, there's always this period of adjustment whenever a book one loves gets adapted.  But the show for the most part, is almost wilder than the book and I oftened found myself wondering what I'd make of it if I had never red the book.

I like what they've done with Laura and Sweeney and most of the rest.(they did a better job with Audrey's grief than Gaiman did ).

Too bad it didn't end with Wednesday revealing himself on House on the Rock but that had something to do with budget constraints?

Too bad Gillian Anderson left.

And I love the introduction. It's everything the Transformers should've been but wasn't.:P:P

Yep, Laura and Sweeny were excellent. I don’t see it so much as a change as a “fill in the gap” (because Laura is largely off screen in the book). I’m typically a staunch book purist but I love how they adapted this.

Really disappointed Anderson left, I loved her as Media. They will certainly need to recast, hope they pick someone who can live up to what she started. There were also talks that Chenoweth might jump ship too because of Green and Fuller but I haven’t read up on this lately. 

The “Coming to America” segments are my favourite part of the show. Especially the extended one which is the whole episode for Sweeny

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I just came back from Deadpool 2. I have to say that I have mixed feelings about it overall. It's a superior effort to the previous Deadpool in almost every single way, except in the one area that actually counts, namely the amount of laughs it manages to sollicit.

On that front, it's an inspired effort, but just not as good as the previous one. I feel like that hurts the film overall, since Deadpool as a franchise really doesn't have any other selling points apart from that humour. The plot and most of the characters in the previous one were just as lame as in any other Marvel film but due to the fact that it was so hilarious at all times you could handwave that pretty easily. In this one, there are quite long stretches without jokes and that's just not a very appealing prospect.

Don't get me wrong, I don't want to be overly harsh on it. It remains a fun and enjoyable little film in its own right. When the jokes come, they are awesome. The credit scenes are great. Action is handled well and Josh Brolin is awesome as Cable. There is plenty to love here but I think it's best to go in here with lowered expectations.

EDIT: I would also strongly recommend everyone who is planning to see Deadpool 2 and hasn't seen Logan yet to go and watch that before seeing Deadpool.  You'll thank me later.

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On 4/30/2018 at 12:08 AM, Triskele said:

HBO's Barry is a collossall (sp) and surprising disappointment to me.  Not very interesting and not funny at all, and not even trying to let Bill Hader do anything comedic.  

I'm only two episodes in and I agree.  I'm a fan of Bill Hader and I expected a lot more.  Does he ever drop the indifferent attitude?  

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On 5/15/2018 at 4:50 PM, Veltigar said:

I just came back from Deadpool 2. I have to say that I have mixed feelings about it overall. It's a superior effort to the previous Deadpool in almost every single way, except in the one area that actually counts, namely the amount of laughs it manages to sollicit.

I had the same reaction to Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2. I think it's hard to strike twice comedically in general, and super hero movies probably struggle more than the average movie. The unique gag probably only works the first time around. 

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On 5/14/2018 at 7:28 PM, Pony Empress Jace said:

Yeah, Silicon Valley has not been up to standard this year. But I'll say that Donald has been excellent and I've enjoyed Gavin's exploits.

I've really enjoyed it, especially the last two episodes.

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On 5/15/2018 at 10:50 PM, Veltigar said:

I just came back from Deadpool 2. I have to say that I have mixed feelings about it overall. It's a superior effort to the previous Deadpool in almost every single way, except in the one area that actually counts, namely the amount of laughs it manages to sollicit.

On that front, it's an inspired effort, but just not as good as the previous one. I feel like that hurts the film overall, since Deadpool as a franchise really doesn't have any other selling points apart from that humour. The plot and most of the characters in the previous one were just as lame as in any other Marvel film but due to the fact that it was so hilarious at all times you could handwave that pretty easily. In this one, there are quite long stretches without jokes and that's just not a very appealing prospect.

Don't get me wrong, I don't want to be overly harsh on it. It remains a fun and enjoyable little film in its own right. When the jokes come, they are awesome. The credit scenes are great. Action is handled well and Josh Brolin is awesome as Cable. There is plenty to love here but I think it's best to go in here with lowered expectations.

EDIT: I would also strongly recommend everyone who is planning to see Deadpool 2 and hasn't seen Logan yet to go and watch that before seeing Deadpool.  You'll thank me later.

https://media.giphy.com/media/J519NkijNNIvC/200.gif

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Comfy tv, of which I need a lot right now: season 5 (2016) of Elementary.  I have loved this series from the jump, when I finally began to watch it on dvd.  I had expected to hate it.  But, I suppose primarily due to the splendid Lucy Liu, my reaction was quite otherwise.

Also, infinitely superior to that pretentious Brit Sherlock, imho -- Elementary refuses to have airs or take itself too seriously, just do its job best it can -- while getting in a quite surprising amount of astute perspective on very contemporary problems of our society from all kinds of perspectives, not only that of the catch the criminal pov.

It's probably time though, for Elementary to go.  5 - 6 seasons are more than ample, that is if one has a strong investment in keeping the quality high and not becoming stale and repetitive.

 

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