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


Ramsay B.

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6 hours ago, Iskaral Pust said:

I watched the first episode of Derry Girls with my wife the other night.  I thought it was very funny but she wasn’t hugely impressed (she never really enjoys Irish/British comedy).  So I binged the rest of the season by myself on our long flight yesterday.  Six episodes of ~23 minutes each is so short compared to American TV seasons. 

I really enjoyed it and would recommend it highly.  

In the General Chatter thread of Miscellaneous, a dad is asking for recs for information about The Troubles for his young daughter, with whom he's been watching Derry Girls. She got really interested.  If you have something to help him he'd probably appreciate it.

In the meantime, yah, I continue watching Derry Girls -- short, o so short, how wonderful!  And continuing season 3 of The Magicians -- also short, also hilarious and fun, especially as we've mostly gotten away from emo Quentin (though he did return for a while thanx to a key).  But it's very creative and imaginative with what has to be a very small budget in comparison with so many tv series.  Best of all, it's also mostly smart, and often hilarious.  It walks a real edge between snarky for snarky sake, particularly in the invocation of all the fantasy and game stuff references, but that what the whole damned thing is about.  I love how the show is making fun of it, without being offensive, one presumes, to people who take it all quite passionately and seriously, and even as a way of life (I don't get that personally, but that's how good the show is, I enjoy it).

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On 12/26/2018 at 6:20 PM, Zorral said:

The Magicians, season 3, is up streaming on netflix.  It's insane!  In all the good ways.

I mean, really, here we are with Quentin and Alice all wrapped in cellophane, waving a bottle of, presumably vodka?, bunnies as instant messengers, and lordessa knows what else.

It is crazy.  I don't think the books were like this, at least not on purpose.  Here this is just how it is and it makes no sense, because magic makes no sense, yet it hangs together.   It's so funny.  I keep watching, mouth hanging open, going, No, you didn't really do that, say that, go there.

And somehow Alice's chest gets larger every season -- and this is deliberate too.

There's just nothing like this anywhere else.

Really looking forward to Magicians S4 in the new year.  It's one of those adaptations that surpassed the source material despite the clearly limited budget for special effects.

Or maybe because of it.

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22 hours ago, Triskele said:

This sounds like one of these situations where if you were borrowing your friend's password you'd have to debate watching as there'd be a record of what you'd watched.  But you might be tempted anyhow.  

I really enjoyed the season. It's bonkers.

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On 12/26/2018 at 5:05 AM, Heartofice said:

I've noticed it a lot on American TV shows, particularly when they are showing British people. I find it quite amusing that someone from the US would be unable to understand someone from Liverpool.

Many Americans struggle with any real British accent.  They’ve been brainwashed to believe that BBC is the natural British accent, and the only variations are a slight but still intelligible burr like Jamie in Outlander or the forelock tuggers in Poldark or the supposedly Yorkshire servants in Downton Abbey.  Guy Ritchie movies, Trainspotting, anyone from Liverpool, Newcastle, Glasgow or Belfast are just incomprehensible. 

I’ve had so many friends who desperately want to enjoy more British TV, because anglophilia is very in, but they need sub-titles to follow it.  And rhyming slang is weird and wonderful in its whimsy, but never, ever understood in real time. 

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American working a British pub in NYC checking in. Over my years here, mostly working Irish pubs, a Scottish one, now English, I've met people from just about every corner of the world.

I can confirm that for a typical American (ie, one who hasn't spent many hours around Glaswegians, rural Cork lads, and the like), heavy Scottish, northern English, and fast-talking Irish accents are generally harder to understand than most English spoken by a non-native speaker. Even though they share most words, American English and Scots English may as well be two different languages. Someone from, say, Morocco who speaks English as his 4th best language is generally easier to understand for most of us, simply because he learned his words in an RP accent, which a proper Corkonian would never bother to try.

I find it utterly fascinating. I have more Irish friends these days than American, and often enough once a couple of them are having a chat, I sit directly next to them blissfully absolutely unaware of their conversation, and I've been around heavy UK and Irish accents for my career nearly a decade.

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6 hours ago, Argonath Diver said:

American working a British pub in NYC checking in. Over my years here, mostly working Irish pubs, a Scottish one, now English, I've met people from just about every corner of the world.

I can confirm that for a typical American (ie, one who hasn't spent many hours around Glaswegians, rural Cork lads, and the like), heavy Scottish, northern English, and fast-talking Irish accents are generally harder to understand than most English spoken by a non-native speaker. Even though they share most words, American English and Scots English may as well be two different languages. Someone from, say, Morocco who speaks English as his 4th best language is generally easier to understand for most of us, simply because he learned his words in an RP accent, which a proper Corkonian would never bother to try.

I find it utterly fascinating. I have more Irish friends these days than American, and often enough once a couple of them are having a chat, I sit directly next to them blissfully absolutely unaware of their conversation, and I've been around heavy UK and Irish accents for my career nearly a decade.

Isn't that kind of true for most countries though? I mean a Irish person may understand English just fine, but let him listen to a person from the deep south, Appalachian area, or even a yooper from Michigan and they will struggle to understand them.  

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12 hours ago, dbunting said:

Isn't that kind of true for most countries though? I mean a Irish person may understand English just fine, but let him listen to a person from the deep south, Appalachian area, or even a yooper from Michigan and they will struggle to understand them.  

I don't think that is true. I think exposure to American TV and movies means that there is a general level of understanding of most of those accents. However I do think that many British accents are simply a lot thicker and start from an older base, as well as being less exposed in the media, so it makes sense that  Americans wouldn't quite understand them. 

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I watched the new Tomb Raider film, since it has just shown up on Netflix. Most video games adaptations are terrible, but I enjoyed this one. I thought Alicia Vikander was good in the lead role, the rest of the cast were decent although I feel Dominic West was maybe a bit underused. The film does get off to a bit of a slow start, I'm not sure we really needed to see Lara's cycle courier escapades, but I thought once the story reached the island it turned into an entertaining adventure movie. I liked the way the island's curse ended up making more sense than the initial legend we're told, although elsewhere there were some plot holes.

One of the more obvious being that as far as I could tell the film makes no attempt to explain why Walton Goggins believes that he's killed Lara's father when he obviously hasn't.

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On 12/28/2018 at 5:03 PM, Iskaral Pust said:

Many Americans struggle with any real British accent.  They’ve been brainwashed to believe that BBC is the natural British accent, and the only variations are a slight but still intelligible burr like Jamie in Outlander or the forelock tuggers in Poldark or the supposedly Yorkshire servants in Downton Abbey.  Guy Ritchie movies, Trainspotting, anyone from Liverpool, Newcastle, Glasgow or Belfast are just incomprehensible. 

I’ve had so many friends who desperately want to enjoy more British TV, because anglophilia is very in, but they need sub-titles to follow it.  And rhyming slang is weird and wonderful in its whimsy, but never, ever understood in real time. 

 

On 12/28/2018 at 1:18 AM, Zorral said:

In the General Chatter thread of Miscellaneous, a dad is asking for recs for information about The Troubles for his young daughter, with whom he's been watching Derry Girls. She got really interested.  If you have something to help him he'd probably appreciate it.

In the meantime, yah, I continue watching Derry Girls -- short, o so short, how wonderful!  

Really great to see the love for Derry Girls spread. I hope the second season is just as good and it becomes massively popular, because I would like to keep on bragging about how I discovered this little gem before most people ;) 

 

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On 12/26/2018 at 10:54 PM, Zorral said:

It was the best seasons most certainly in terms of pacing and rhythm -- though without the previous two seasons we wouldn't have what we need to appreciate all the good things. But there was that great drawback of Skade as character and as casting.  Gods!  Not even the Danes could stomach her except for that very stupid Bloodhair.

Still, nothing for me beats the revelation of the actor and character that was Our Alfred, as he faces face2face total disaster and needs must hide in the fenlands back in season 1.

Also some of the scenes featuring Alfred's daughter in season 2 were just great.

Maybe this is just another way of saying the whole thing is far better than most television historical fiction series by a factor of about a thousand.  And its whole is more than the sum of its parts.  :laugh:

Never understood the hatred for Skade. She's a bit bland for sure, but she wasn't really given that much to work with in my opinion. In general that is one of the few things were TLK is weaker than say Vikings, it has decent performances but outside of the Wessex court there really aren't that many who are that memorable.

My favourite moment remains

Spoiler

Guthrum's baptism

. I still find it one of the best series I have ever seen. It's incredibly poetic.

I do 100% with its status in the field of historical drama though.

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1 hour ago, Veltigar said:

Really great to see the love for Derry Girls spread. I hope the second season is just as good and it becomes massively popular, because I would like to keep on bragging about how I discovered this little gem before most people ;) 

 

It has echos for me of AbFab, in which the characters are just -- beyond.  Though in AbFab part of that was their clothes, in Derry Girls that isn't part of it.  It's -- the face.  It's what they do with their faces and bodies, but most particularly their faces.  US actors / programs, crazy as some of them are, this isn't something they do.  This, to me (I may well be wrong and not know what I'm talking about), is something that the UK does and can do and has been doing for decades and the US just doesn't because there's some kind of tradition(s)-practice(s) both culturally and theatrically that haven't come here? I dunno?

1 hour ago, Veltigar said:
  Hide contents

Guthrum's baptism

 I still find it one of the best series I have ever seen. It's incredibly poetic.

I do 100% with its status in the field of historical drama though.

 There are so many of these throughout the seasons. Religion has its place honestly in this program for sure.

1 hour ago, Veltigar said:

Never understood the hatred for Skade. She's a bit bland for sure, but she wasn't really given that much to work with in my opinion. In general

She was miscast and the writing was very bad -- it wasn't good in the books either.  This is the one place where TLK veered into Vikings self-destruct after season 2.  The actor' face and projection were -- vapid. Vapid a sorceress does not make.  Ask any real sorceress and she'll tell ya.

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8 hours ago, williamjm said:

I watched the new Tomb Raider film, since it has just shown up on Netflix. Most video games adaptations are terrible, but I enjoyed this one. I thought Alicia Vikander was good in the lead role, the rest of the cast were decent although I feel Dominic West was maybe a bit underused. The film does get off to a bit of a slow start, I'm not sure we really needed to see Lara's cycle courier escapades, but I thought once the story reached the island it turned into an entertaining adventure movie. I liked the way the island's curse ended up making more sense than the initial legend we're told, although elsewhere there were some plot holes.

 

  Hide contents

ne of the more obvious being that as far as I could tell the film makes no attempt to explain why Walton Goggins believes that he's killed Lara's father when he obviously hasn't.

 

This review is pretty spot on to the ones from people who watched it when it came out. If you get rid of the cycling crap it's not a bad movie and the "curse" actually seems plausible. All in all a good action movie.

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21 hours ago, Martini Sigil said:

Feeling under the weather... so I've been re-watching the American Gods marathon on Starz... I'm loving it the 2nd time 'round.... 

Despite all the drama and troubles BTS I’m still very excited for season 2

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23 hours ago, Zorral said:

It has echos for me of AbFab, in which the characters are just -- beyond.  Though in AbFab part of that was their clothes, in Derry Girls that isn't part of it.  It's -- the face.  It's what they do with their faces and bodies, but most particularly their faces.  US actors / programs, crazy as some of them are, this isn't something they do.  This, to me (I may well be wrong and not know what I'm talking about), is something that the UK does and can do and has been doing for decades and the US just doesn't because there's some kind of tradition(s)-practice(s) both culturally and theatrically that haven't come here? I dunno?

I don't know whether it's a general thing, but the actors in Derry Girls do all have quite fascinating mugs which they play out handily I agree on that :)

23 hours ago, Zorral said:

 There are so many of these throughout the seasons. Religion has its place honestly in this program for sure.

I like the way they don't shy away from it, unlike a show like Vikings which is almost insulting in the way it treats belief systems.

23 hours ago, Zorral said:

She was miscast and the writing was very bad -- it wasn't good in the books either.  This is the one place where TLK veered into Vikings self-destruct after season 2.  The actor' face and projection were -- vapid. Vapid a sorceress does not make.  Ask any real sorceress and she'll tell ya.

The acting has always been one of the weaker bits of TLK to me, perhaps that is why she didn't stand out to much. She was pretty and bellicose, which I think was enough for the role. TLK does such a good job at invoking the time spirit that I can imagine man going wild based on those two attributes.

 

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I think Strange got a lot of screen time because he'll be one of the anchors of the next phase of Marvel movies with a lot of the original guys (Downey, Evans, possibly Hemsworth) presumably moving on after Endgame. 

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Strange is also supposed to be precisely the kind of guy who defends against Thanos like threats, and he has one of the two stones. Vision was also a pretty important piece, and for the sole reason that he had the stone. Strange is also one of the most powerful beings on the planet, right up there with Thor, and can fight gods by himself. It would be weird not to have him front and center. 

Plus I think the creative team rightly identified that Strange and Stark going off of each other would be pretty hilarious. 

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