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


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7 hours ago, polishgenius said:

I watched the first episode of Killing Eve. It's pretty great to be honest with you.

The penultimate episode aired this past Sunday on BBC America. It's consistently a lot of fun. Jodie Comer is wonderful as Villanelle.

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50 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Idk where else to put this, considering the #MeToo thread has long since been closed, but it appears that Morgan Freeman might be a complete scumbag.

That certainly falls under the "ugly" notation of the thread title. 

I guess just assume every man with any level of fame is a scumbag and you'll never be disappointed (well, other than in that assumption). 

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On 5/23/2018 at 1:01 AM, Nictarion said:

Speaking of Netflix documentaries I watched Wild Wild Country. It’s about an Indian guru and his cult that built their own city in Oregon in the early 80’s. All kinds of crazy stuff from bioterrorism to rigged elections to plotting political assassanations. It was really interesting, especially as I’d never even heard about any of it. 

I've had that one on my list for a bit.

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It’s not the usual fare for this thread but my wife and I went to see an excellent production of Macbeth at the Chicago Shakespeare Theater last weekend.  And we have Waiting For Godot in just over a week.  

Good theater is a great experience, and we’re lucky to have some good choices in Chicago.  But I wish there were more productions of Irish playwrights. Becket’s Godot is the first I can recall here.

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Just came back from seeing Solo: A Star Wars Story. They should stick to making butter. Such a weird film. I can't say I hated it, there was some genuine fun to be had but if I have to describe this film in one word I'd have to use 'unnecessary.' 

Solo really does not do enough to justify it's existence, despite good performances by Emilia Clarke, Paul Bettany and Donald Glover (although the latter is overpraised for his work here). Apart from the ending, the story was incredibly rote. It was also very weird in trying to cram pretty much everything we know about Han Solo into one film. It really was more concerned with ticking of boxes than with providing us with a consistent narrative.

I actually think Star Wars fatigue might become a thing pretty soon because of films like this. If they keep on bringing out films that are as divisive as The Last Jedi and as unnecessary as this one, we won't have a happy ending anytime soon. The sequel baiting was done pretty artful in this one though, I'll hand them that. A shame they didn't cast a better Han Solo though, this guy is about as charismatic a leading man as Sam Worthington.    

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Also just watched Solo and had a more enjoyable experience as it was pretty much what I expected it to be, a Solo origin story. I did get the feeling that it was going a little long which is a bad sign. Part I loved was the minimal CGI, this was mostly real actors working off each other and not a green screen or puppet. Also, to me it felt like Rogue One and didn't seem to be aimed at little kids.

I would absolutely go see a sequel. 

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7 hours ago, Veltigar said:

Just came back from seeing Solo: A Star Wars Story. They should stick to making butter. Such a weird film. I can't say I hated it, there was some genuine fun to be had but if I have to describe this film in one word I'd have to use 'unnecessary.' 

Solo really does not do enough to justify it's existence, despite good performances by Emilia Clarke, Paul Bettany and Donald Glover (although the latter is overpraised for his work here). Apart from the ending, the story was incredibly rote. It was also very weird in trying to cram pretty much everything we know about Han Solo into one film. It really was more concerned with ticking of boxes than with providing us with a consistent narrative.

I actually think Star Wars fatigue might become a thing pretty soon because of films like this. If they keep on bringing out films that are as divisive as The Last Jedi and as unnecessary as this one, we won't have a happy ending anytime soon. The sequel baiting was done pretty artful in this one though, I'll hand them that. A shame they didn't cast a better Han Solo though, this guy is about as charismatic a leading man as Sam Worthington.    

The charge of good acting by Emilia Clarke is something I would have to see to believe. And I sure as shit ain't about to go see this 'film'.

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56 minutes ago, Pony Empress Jace said:

The charge of good acting by Emilia Clarke is something I would have to see to believe. And I sure as shit ain't about to go see this 'film'.

Well, you could go see Genysis instead. I heard she's like the least robotic thing in that movie!

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I watched a movie called Thoroughbreds with Anya Taylor-Joy and Olivia Cooke. It was pretty good and both actresses really carry the film the whole time. Cooke plays a convincing sociopath who reconnects with Joy when she is at a crossroads in her young life. It’s almost like a black comedy of sorts. I do wish it would’ve been longer so we could’ve gotten a chance to explore Amanda’s life a little more. Sociopaths fascinate me.

It was also Anton Yelchin’s last film I think. Such a shame because he was a fine actor. 

 

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2 hours ago, dbunting said:

Also just watched Solo and had a more enjoyable experience as it was pretty much what I expected it to be, a Solo origin story. I did get the feeling that it was going a little long which is a bad sign. Part I loved was the minimal CGI, this was mostly real actors working off each other and not a green screen or puppet. Also, to me it felt like Rogue One and didn't seem to be aimed at little kids.

I would absolutely go see a sequel. 

I had expected that as well but I thought they'd handle it with more grace. We have seen pretty much every piece of Han Solo related backstory from the OT play out on screen. That's not how you make an effective origin story, as if Han Solo came out of a bottle in under two hours. I could forgive them if they wanted to keep it to one film but this is clearly set up to establish a new mini-franchise of Solo adventures.

They should have taken clues from Endeavour, which only slowly transforms its young protagonist into the Inspector Morse we know and its always more low-key, since that development takes place during the cases he has to solve. They have clearly written this story around what little we knew of Han from the OT and then structured a movie around it but they should have started out with the adventure and then they should have seen what kind of backstory they could have put in there.  

I do think a sequel might be better though. They have done all the origin story lifting in this one, so perhaps it would be better.

 

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2 hours ago, Pony Empress Jace said:

The charge of good acting by Emilia Clarke is something I would have to see to believe. And I sure as shit ain't about to go see this 'film'.

You could also try Triassic Attack, she's really good in that :P

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I watched Anon on Netflix. It felt like an extended episode of Black Mirror, as it showed an interesting and disturbing piece of future tech that came to dominate people's lives, and how it could be both abused and subverted. It was fine, but nothing incredible.

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On 5/20/2018 at 12:41 PM, Veltigar said:

EDIT: Come to think of it, I'm surprised that, in this age obsessed with spin-offs, franchises and developing properties with built-in fanbases,  no one has tried to sell the idea of a Scarface prequel to studios.  


Universal are making one. Antoine Fuqua was meant to do it, then he left and the Coen Brothers were writing it, now he's possibly back and it's being rewritten again by his choice of writer, or something. Anyway, it's much-delayed but on the way.

 

 

On 5/23/2018 at 1:53 PM, Astromech said:

The penultimate episode aired this past Sunday on BBC America. It's consistently a lot of fun. Jodie Comer is wonderful as Villanelle.



I binged the whole thing during the week and am now waiting impatiently for the finale. Really enjoyed it so far.

 

 

 

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