Jump to content

Watch, Watched, Watching: Getting Sneaky


RedEyedGhost

Recommended Posts

31 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

To my shame i have never read the Count of Monte Cristo

I love Dumas, but my love for his work didn't really develop until I got a whole more granular knowledge of French history and geography -- and European history and geography too (as opposed to the deep British - US viewpoint of history I began with).  Oddly, my favorite has become this one:

 

Quote

Le Chevalier de Sainte-Hermine, 1869): the novel was his last major work and was lost until its rediscovery by Claude Schopp was announced in 2005.

It's from the Napoleonic era, and is thus particularly of interest since his father was a free black man from St. Domingue, who won great fame and re-known as a general in the field during the Revolution, and then was basically hounded out of the French army by Emperor Napoleon, who shared entirely Josephine's racist viewpoints -- so much so he was determined to re-instate slavery in the now free republic of Haiti, formerly St. Domingue.

Sir Walter Scott is the founding father of historical fiction as we understand it.  But Dumas is surely the godfather.  His principles of how to write historical fiction are something I re-read frequently.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 5/24/2019 at 3:30 PM, Raja said:

I saw Suspiria last night and man that movie sticks with you - I've been thinking about it all day today, and I know not everyone is fan of Yorke's album, but I really liked the music too. I'm not a big horror guy, so I'm surprised I'm as taken by the movie as I am, but the direction is masterful and there's *so* much to unpack, I might even do a rewatch this weekend. 

I haven't seen the original but I might figure out a way to catch it at some point. 

 

11 hours ago, Ramsay B. said:

I loved it too, and that ending is fucking wild. It’s a slow burn that definitely pays off. 

I thought it was decent. The Russian girl getting all mangled up synced to Dakota Johnson’s dancing was one of the better scenes I’ve seen in a horror movie recently. Shit was gruesome. I definitely prefer the original though. Especially the ending. Wild is an understatement wrt the remake ending lol. It was close to going a bit too far off the rails for me. 

Also, wtf was with Tilda Swinton playing the old Jewish guy? That was an interesting choice...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

5 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

It's one of my favorite books. I'm assuming you've seen one of the movies though? The one from 2002 wasn't awful, but good lord did they butcher the end. CoMC is not a fucking fairy tale ending.........

Just watch the Wishbone episode on it. Beats all the other adaptations :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

So I watched the latest Halloween on HBO last night.  ? I have no understanding of why this movie got good reviews. 

There is almost no level of bad horror that I won't watch, and the last 1/3 of this movie was so dull I started doing housework.  I found the Halloween H20 from the 90s was much more interesting and much better.  I think I even liked Halloween: Resurrection better than this one. There was literally not one interesting thing in the entire movie, okay maybe the 2 podcasters could have been interesting but they killed them off w/out doing anything.  

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Caught Overlord and Bad Times at the El Royale on a flight yesterday. Loved both. Wyatt Russell is the generic white guy action hero that Jai Courtney, Taylor Kitsch, Sam Worthington, et al should all be sacrificed at the altar of.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

8 hours ago, Cas Stark said:

So I watched the latest Halloween on HBO last night.  ? I have no understanding of why this movie got good reviews. 

There is almost no level of bad horror that I won't watch, and the last 1/3 of this movie was so dull I started doing housework.  I found the Halloween H20 from the 90s was much more interesting and much better.  I think I even liked Halloween: Resurrection better than this one. There was literally not one interesting thing in the entire movie, okay maybe the 2 podcasters could have been interesting but they killed them off w/out doing anything.  

Yeah, I watched it last night as well, and also found it pretty mediocre. The director (David Gordon Green) has mostly done comedies with Danny McBride, but he also did a drama with Nicholas Cage called Joe that I really liked, so I had high hopes for this, but it was pretty meh overall. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 5/20/2019 at 5:22 PM, ljkeane said:

I'm watching The Looming Tower at the moment which is ok. I did find it quite amusing when at one point the FBI agents were meant to have travelled to Manchester and it was absolutely 100% clearly not Manchester. Other than that it seems decent enough.

I mentioned the same thing when I posted about the series. I don't even think that part looked like it was filmed in the UK.

We watched Hatton Garden this weekend - the four part dramatisation of the Hatton Garden jewellery theft from 2015. Pretty much exactly how I expected it to be - a bunch of old white geezers telling each other to 'fack orff'. Classic. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

6 hours ago, Isis said:

We watched Hatton Garden this weekend - the four part dramatisation of the Hatton Garden jewellery theft from 2015. Pretty much exactly how I expected it to be - a bunch of old white geezers telling each other to 'fack orff'. Classic. 

Coincidentally, I just watched King of Thieves on Amazon, which is another dramatisation of the Hatton Garden heist. It's not really the most cinematic of heists, although it's fun to watch Michael Caine, Jim Broadbent, Tom Courtney, Ray Winstone and Michael Gambon all bickering with each other.

I also watched John Wick : Parabellum which was a lot of fun. I think I preferred it to the second film, although the first is still my favourite in the series. The fight scenes do keep steadily getting more over-the-top as the series goes on, and I think the majority of the movie doe seem to be one fight scene or another. The library scene, Halle Berry's dogs and the finale are particularly highlights.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Veep was great. The entire cast was tremendous throughout and I’m gonna miss this show a lot. It went a little off the rails this last season, but so has this country so it absolutely fit.

Spoiler

I loved Richard becoming Governor, then a 2-term President. Poor Gary. Selina finally getting the oval office then having that empty, unfulfilled moment was such a fitting end. 

“This is a horrific country that is falling apart because it is full of people who are different from me.” -Jonah. 

’Murica 

I agree that Parabellum was better than the 2nd JW, but not the original. I’m glad the 4th installment was already announced. Keep em coming.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Rushed through another episode of Catch-22. I'm surprised this isn't getting more buzz. The actors are phenomenal and it looks gorgeous. Also nice to have another limited series. I feel that is an underused format nowadays.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Watched the first episode of Dead to Me. Its okay, i guess, enough that i’ll keep watching. Was expecting the twist/reveal at the end of the episode from pretty much the moment the two mains meet

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 minutes ago, HelenaExMachina said:

Watched the first episode of Dead to Me. Its okay, i guess, enough that i’ll keep watching. Was expecting the twist/reveal at the end of the episode from pretty much the moment the two mains meet

Yeah, I thought even the trailer hinted pretty heavily at it.  Its next on my to do list. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

6 minutes ago, BigFatCoward said:

Yeah, I thought even the trailer hinted pretty heavily at it.  Its next on my to do list. 

Oh, didn’t watch the trailer, word of mouth got me to watch it. I dont think it was really intended as a twist though. Or if it was it wasnt a very good one ;) 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 5/25/2019 at 7:14 PM, Astromech said:

Just watch the Wishbone episode on it. Beats all the other adaptations :)

I loved that show so much as a kid so I decided to look the episode up. It actually was fairly accurate, but damn did they write out Vampa. :P

Link to comment
Share on other sites

As mentioned in another thread, I finally got around to seeing Akira. I would say that I liked it, but didn't love it. I think Ghost in the Shell is the better film. That said, I can see why it had such a large influence on the anime genre, as well as entertainment in general.

I also saw the first few episodes of Breaking Bad. I can already tell why it is so beloved, but good lord are some of the central characters annoying. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Saw Rocketman, which i loved. Its inevitable that people will compare it to Bohemian Rhapsody. I liked this film way more. I didn’t know anything about Elton John before this and i found his story very interesting and at times heartbreaking. Taron Egerton was fantastic in this role and has a great voice. Costumes were, of course, phenomenal. All the musical numbers were great but Saturday Night’s All Right for Fighting was the highlight for me.

Elton John songs are so ear-wormy too, ive been humming them all day

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, HelenaExMachina said:

Elton John songs are so ear-wormy too, ive been humming them all day

Boy are they ever!  Your post made me think of how the other year the Americans used Goodbye Yellow Brick Road and how after that aired I was humming it for the next few days.  And now its running through my head again and I'm humming it endlessly all over again...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

×
×
  • Create New...