Watch, Watched, Watching: The Art of the Rewatch edition

[Heartofice]

1 minute ago, williamjm said:

I watched Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. I thought it was a good film, it's less of a comedy than McDonagh's In Bruges, but there are still some darkly comic moments in it. It was a great cast, Frances McDormand deserved all the awards she won for this and Sam Rockwell was also great. The plot didn't necessarily unfold in the way I expected, but I thought it worked well although there's at least one scene which seemed to be a blatant red herring

I loved that movie. I wouldn't go into it expecting a standard tale that will be wrapped up nicely by the end. 2/3rds of the way through I thought that was what I was going to get and so was maybe a little disappointed by the ending. But the more I thought on it the more i loved it. Great performances all round though.

[Ramsay B.]

17 hours ago, Nictarion said:

Watched Hot Summer Nights. It’s a coming of age movie set in the 90’s about a kid that becomes a drug dealer. It was just ok. Maika Monroe and the soundtrack were the highlights.

I was kinda disappointed with this one too. Although I get overly hyped for anything from A24 that has a decent trailer.

I watched a new movie called The Clovehitch Killer. It’s about a teenage son in a religious family that suspects his dad is a serial killer. It was ok. Dylan McDermott is good as the dad but it ultimately falls flat as I think about it more. I guess it’s worth a watch if this topic interests you.

[Ran]

On 12/15/2018 at 6:37 AM, Triskele said:

Bit the bullet and watched Roma on Netflix at the first opportunity rather than the theater.  It was pretty great and lived up to the hype.  

Ditto. Really sticks with me. Some beautiful cinematography, and terrific performances from Yalitza Aparicio (Cleo) and Marina de Tavira (Sofía).

[red snow]

I watched "beast" the other day which was a great drama/thriller set on jersey and would have been excellent if it had ended 5 minutes earlier. Sadly it didn't and the film felt too much like a generic thriller and i was left really wishing it had ended more ambiguously eg

with the two of them running away to Norway accepting each other fir what they are

. It feels like producers insisted on the ending being tacked on.

[Spring Bass]

I just finished Nightflyers. It was entertaining, but over-stretched over ten episodes. Most of the earlier episodes are pretty forgettable, and it feels kind of weird that they chose to center it on Karl. 

I also saw Mortal Engines (thankfully not at my own expense).  Don't bother, it's terrible. There are some cool visuals, but the rest of it sucks - the main leads are boring and have little chemistry, the secondary characters are all under-developed, the plot is predictable without being interesting on the way to the conclusion, and the dialogue is larded up with tons of unnecessary exposition.*

* This is a thing I've noticed in bad, big-budget "we're hoping this the first of a franchise" films in the past year or so. They're all impatient to get the world-building set-up so they can skip the part where they can do a ton of movies without having to explain stuff, so they pile so much of it in the first film that it helps to sink them. 

[Isis]

On 12/16/2018 at 9:17 PM, red snow said:

I watched "beast" the other day which was a great drama/thriller set on jersey and would have been excellent if it had ended 5 minutes earlier. Sadly it didn't and the film felt too much like a generic thriller and i was left really wishing it had ended more ambiguously eg

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with the two of them running away to Norway accepting each other fir what they are

. It feels like producers insisted on the ending being tacked on.

Hmm. I dunno about that. I thought it worked well.

Because she was happily kidding herself all along that she was fine with him 'maybe being a murderer', when it was ambivalent. But once it was confirmed I think she felt betrayed somehow and she actually couldn't handle it like she had maybe thought she could. When it was a 'fantasy' it was acceptable to her but when it became reality it was something else. She was in denial.

Ok so we finished Fortitude and I have questions. Lots of questions. Wow.

[Derfel Cadarn]

18 minutes ago, Isis said:

Hmm. I dunno about that. I thought it worked well.

 

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Because she was happily kidding herself all along that she was fine with him 'maybe being a murderer', when it was ambivalent. But once it was confirmed I think she felt betrayed somehow and she actually couldn't handle it like she had maybe thought she could. When it was a 'fantasy' it was acceptable to her but when it became reality it was something else. She was in denial.

 

Ok so we finished Fortitude and I have questions. Lots of questions. Wow.

Was Fortitude good? So far just seen the first ep of season 3.  Does anyone actually still live in the town?

The scope seems so different to season 1. I assume most people left after the wasp problem.

Bizarre seeibg Dan slow dance with a charred corpse to Simply Red

[HexMachina]

On 12/16/2018 at 1:07 AM, Risto said:

Certainly... Will finish the movie tomorrow. The hate it got makes me want to watch it even more.

I didn’t even realise it had got a lot of hate. That’s a shame, as I thought it was actually pretty good. I mean its The Jungle Book, it’s been done again and again, we aren’t getting anything new, but this one is closer to Kipling’s story. And the way Serkis uses motion capture continues to be a step ahead of everyone else. Also the young actor portraying Mowgli does an incredible job. Though the cast in both this and the 2016 version were outstanding, I would say this one just tips it slightly. The score isn’t memorable as such but it does compliment the film nicely 

[Zorral]

5 hours ago, HelenaExMachina said:

I didn’t even realise it had got a lot of hate. That’s a shame, as I thought it was actually pretty good. I mean its The Jungle Book, it’s been done again and again, we aren’t getting anything new, but this one is closer to Kipling’s story. And the way Serkis uses motion capture continues to be a step ahead of everyone else. Also the young actor portraying Mowgli does an incredible job. Though the cast in both this and the 2016 version were outstanding, I would say this one just tips it slightly. The score isn’t memorable as such but it does compliment the film nicely 

That all may be so, but it's still so dull, i.e. not entertaining, I quit about a quarter of the way through.

[Heartofice]

41 minutes ago, Zorral said:

That all may be so, but it's still so dull, i.e. not entertaining, I quit about a quarter of the way through.

Agree. It lost all the magic of the original. I'm still not on board with these CGI remakes, I find them insulting.

[Astromech]

Finished s2 of Nat Geo's MARS. Good, but s1 edges this one out. I found the science and story more interesting last season with the initial exploration and colonization of Mars. I was more interested in the science of Mars rather than the environmental science of Earth and climate change, which the commentary almost exclusively discussed this season.

Spoiler

It was just a bit ironic how there was a large caveat the entire season about exploration and exploitation of Mars and the possible negative effects we could have on the planet when a major goal of the scientific colony on Mars was to terraform it and make it habitable for humans.

 

[Isis]

23 hours ago, Derfel Cadarn said:

Was Fortitude good? So far just seen the first ep of season 3.  Does anyone actually still live in the town?

The scope seems so different to season 1. I assume most people left after the wasp problem.

Bizarre seeibg Dan slow dance with a charred corpse to Simply Red

On balance I rather wish they hadn't made this season. I don't think it adds that much to the Fortitude universe. I mean, OTOH it's worth watching it just for Richard Dormer's powerhouse performance, obviously. But at least it is only four episodes so I'd say if you've watched one you might as well watch the other three.

[GallowKnight]

Syfy put the first episode of Deadly Class on youtube, so I watched that. I was good. I have not read the comic so I  don't really know what to expect, but it definitely shows a lot of potential

[Joey Crows]

Started watching Fargo finally. Also been re-watching Bob's Burgers as a palate cleanser from all the death. Haha.

[Heartofice]

5 minutes ago, Joey Crows said:

Started watching Fargo finally. Also been re-watching Bob's Burgers as a palate cleanser from all the death. Haha.

Both are excellent shows, i completely understand why you’d want to alternate them!

I watched Creed 2. It met every one of my expectations and nothing more. I sort of enjoyed the first movie and this was more of the same. I guess you know what you are getting with these movies, but I was a little disappointed at some of the fight scenes which felt quite small scale due to the obvious Green Screen. 

I did enjoy the Drago father son relationship more than anything else , it was at least different and I wanted to see more of that.

[Martini Sigil]

Just finished Bad Blood on Netflix... 6 episodes... Meh....

[Nictarion]

3 hours ago, GallowKnight said:

Syfy put the first episode of Deadly Class on youtube, so I watched that. I was good. I have not read the comic so I  don't really know what to expect, but it definitely shows a lot of potential

Need to check this out. The comics are great. 

[dbunting]

Watched The Mule the other day. I think my best way of summarizing it is underwhelming. It kind of felt like they were trying to use some of his character from Gran Torino in this one.

Spoiler

More than once there were cringe worthy racist comments by his character that are laughed off because he doesn't mean it and likes the people.

His character is pretty old, they mention 90 in the movie but I think his character was in his 70's and yet there is a couple of scenes that show him being...frisky. One was kind of hinted at and funny and all was good if left there, but no... 

Spoiler

There is the second ridiculous scene at the cartel frat house party where he has a threesome and the woman is shown topless. Maybe it was just me but that scene just felt wrong to see.

I left the movie thinking that the whole movie took advantage of Eastwoods star power and came off flat as hell. 

I heard that the movie was actually based of a real person, a Michigan Senior who lived some of this, none of that was mentioned though.

[Ramsay B.]

Yeah, The Mule was decent at best. I thought the last 45 minutes or so dragged and I just wanted it to end. 

Spoiler

I kept wondering why the cartel wouldn’t have their “best” mule change cars every so often. Especially when the cops were looking for a black pickup. 

Also the scene when Bradley Cooper was at the hotel waiting for the mule to show up. Why wouldn’t he just look for a black pickup in the parking lot and wait to see who got into it? 

Then the scene after Clint had his silly 3some and told the cartel soldier he should do something else with his life and just walked away. What the hell was that? 

 

[dbunting]

1 hour ago, Ramsay B. said:

Yeah, The Mule was decent at best. I thought the last 45 minutes or so dragged and I just wanted it to end. 

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I kept wondering why the cartel wouldn’t have their “best” mule change cars every so often. Especially when the cops were looking for a black pickup. 

Also the scene when Bradley Cooper was at the hotel waiting for the mule to show up. Why wouldn’t he just look for a black pickup in the parking lot and wait to see who got into it? 

Then the scene after Clint had his silly 3some and told the cartel soldier he should do something else with his life and just walked away. What the hell was that? 

 

Had the same thoughts.

Spoiler

Because that would be smart, I mean the mule randomly changing his pattern is exactly what you want, and they beat that out of him! Just like a guy who was in foreclosure suddenly driving a 50k truck is stupid! 

Because he was smart and parked it at the adjacent IHOP behind that partial fence, sneaky!

And that was Clint being Clint and always knowing the right thing to say to get blood thirsty bad guy on his side.