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Watch, Watched, Watching: Getting Sneaky


RedEyedGhost

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Watched David Lynch’s Lost Highway for the first time last night. I really liked it. Can never get enough of Patricia Arquette, and she was great as usual. So was Bill Pullman. He’s kind of an underrated actor, imo. Wish he was in more good stuff. Other than the series, The Sinner,  I can’t remember the last time I saw him in something decent. I really missed him in Lost Highway during the middle act when the switch happens. Robert Blake’s character was fucking terrifying. Classic Lynch. 

Also, I loved Baby Driver. Eiza González :wub:

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Yeah, me too. I think what hurt the film was having its best chase scene at the start. I also think it's a little reductive to call it just a soundtrack, i.e., I think it does a lot more with it's music than most other films. The combination of visual storytelling being in sync with the music really stood out to me; I would also disagree with it being the 'wrong' musical choice - what does 'wrong' music even mean? The weakest part of the movie for me is the central romance, I wasn't really invested in that at all. But I think Foxx, Hamm & Spacey are pretty good. Unfortunately, since the multiple accusations against Spacey have come out, I can't quite bring myself to watch the movie again.

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3 minutes ago, Raja said:

Yeah, me too. I think what hurt the film was having its best chase scene at the start. I also think it's a little reductive to call it just a soundtrack, i.e., I think it does a lot more with it's music than most other films. The combination of visual storytelling being in sync with the music really stood out to me; I would also disagree with it being the 'wrong' musical choice - what does 'wrong' music even mean? The weakest part of the movie for me is the central romance, I wasn't really invested in that at all. But I think Foxx, Hamm & Spacey are pretty good. Unfortunately, since the multiple accusations against Spacey have come out, I can't quite bring myself to watch the movie again.

What I meant was that timing music and visuals is really not a new thing, it gets done all the time. The Fury Road trailer is a brilliant example of syncing audio and visuals perfectly to make you feel like your heart is going to burst.

The music in baby driver did nothing for me. I barely remember what they even used and except in one scene it wasn’t even even noticeable. There are certain iconic tracks that move you and just work, and I felt they picked some pretty bang average or predictable songs and it hurt the movie 

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Sure - it might not be a new thing to you, but it's new to other people. I'm sorry it didn't do anything for you - even as someone who doesn't really listen to that kind of music, I love the soundtrack and it has stayed with me since I've seen the movie. Also, re: Fury Road, that's a trailer, not a movie. I can remember *some* scenes from Fury road and the music, but it's nowhere close to the number of scenes I can remember from Baby Driver and the music in that film. As soon as I hear the music, I can picture the scene, and weirdly enough, I've seen Fury Road more times than Baby Driver.

'Certain iconic tracks' - is totally subjective, and clearly they didn't work for you. Totally did for me. Which is why your statement re 'wrong music' is kinda weird.

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Re-watching Season 3 of Last Kingdom.  It's even better this time around.  The 10 episodes instead of the 8 per seasons 1 and 2 were used very well by the writers, helping them with better pacing, among other elements.

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1 hour ago, Raja said:

Sure - it might not be a new thing to you, but it's new to other people. I'm sorry it didn't do anything for you - even as someone who doesn't really listen to that kind of music, I love the soundtrack and it has stayed with me since I've seen the movie. Also, re: Fury Road, that's a trailer, not a movie. I can remember *some* scenes from Fury road and the music, but it's nowhere close to the number of scenes I can remember from Baby Driver and the music in that film. As soon as I hear the music, I can picture the scene, and weirdly enough, I've seen Fury Road more times than Baby Driver.

'Certain iconic tracks' - is totally subjective, and clearly they didn't work for you. Totally did for me. Which is why your statement re 'wrong music' is kinda weird.

Have to say, I consider Fury Road to have one of the best soundtracks that pair with the movie. However I think my judgement is distorted in that I consider it one of the best movies made in the last 20 years. It's flawless. I can't think of a single negative criticism I might have over it. The visuals, the score, the pace, the action, the characters.. are a perfect blend of entertainment. I don't watch a lot of TV these days, but if it's on when flipping through channels, I'm instantly sucked in. I don't think a more rewatchable movie has been made since The Shawshank Redemption.

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Oh, I think Fury Road is great too.  I think it's a better film than Baby Driver, but I think Baby Driver's melding of the soundtrack and the visuals have stuck to me more than Fury Road's. Fury Road's sountrack sort of melds together for me, as opposed to Baby Driver where I can associate every song with a particular scene ( IE - Harlem shuffle with the scene of him getting coffee)

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Saw Toy Story 4 (yes, alone. Yes, the screening was full of families with younger children*. Suck it). It wasn’t perfect, but it didnt feel like a blatant cash grab and there were some genuinely brilliant moments. And the animation was unbelievable. Seriously the animators working on this, sheriff’s hat off to them, it was to infinity and beyond** good.

Couple of points 

Spoiler

While the new characters were great, it was slightly disappointing to see the core cast sidelined so much. This was basically Woody goes in an adventure with a couple of Buzz scenes thrown in.

 

Buzz was the worst part of this film. They just made him a complete idiot to the point he is even worse than in the original Toy Story. Completely tossed out 3 films of character work.

 

Gabby Gabby was awesome and her henchmen were horrifying. 

 

I loved Bo Peep. And that her three headed sheep was named Billy, Goat and Gruff.

 

 

*i must say these were some freakishly scary well behaved children though. Not a (Bo) Peep out of them from the beginning of the film to the end

**thats the last pun i swear

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13 hours ago, Zorral said:

Re-watching Season 3 of Last Kingdom.  It's even better this time around.  The 10 episodes instead of the 8 per seasons 1 and 2 were used very well by the writers, helping them with better pacing, among other elements.

Any news on when the next season is coming?

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I've almost finished Happy S2 now and I think its been cancelled. 

Bit of a shame because I think this show is unlike any other. There are some of the most incredibly over the top, but perfect comedic performances in this show. Nick Sax is such a work of genius and he fits perfectly in a show that knows how to take things much too far, revels in its violence and gives political correctness a bit of a slap. 

Its not a perfect show, it tends to drag at times and honestly I don't feel like it even had another real season in it because I've seen enough. But I have to give it all a pat on the back for not giving a crap.

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5 hours ago, Veltigar said:

Any news on when the next season is coming?

No date as yet.  Which probably isn't going to be announced until they wrap season 4 shooting, which they're deep into at this time.  I'm kind of impatient, considering how Aelswith, all too realistically relentless in her narrow-mindedness to exclude, and / or punish anyone who isn't christian or whom she perceives in any way an enemy, at the end has isolated King-to-be Edward from anyone who can help hang on to the crown, while surrounding him with rivals from his father-in-law to his brother-in-law.  Not to mention an army of Danes still chomping on the Wessex borders.

https://www.ibtimes.com/last-kingdom-season-4-alexander-dreymon-films-action-sequence-eats-popsicle-2802645

This one has a video of the actors on season 4 set, throwing verbal kiss-kiss-kiss to we, the anticipatory audience:

https://www.radiotimes.com/news/on-demand/2019-06-24/the-last-kingdom-season-4-netflix-release-date-cast-trailer/

This is a very nice piece, filled with information and photos, as well as a comical video bit of the actor who plays Aelswith doing something that the character Aelswith would probably have her executed for.

Included toward the bottom is a very long video sort-of interview with the actors who play Uhtred, Brida, the prince of Mercia and Aethelwold -- and that actor is as annoying and egotistical as his character!  He insists on doing all the talking.

https://www.whats-on-netflix.com/news/the-last-kingdom-season-4-everything-we-know-so-far-06-19/

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I watched the new A24 movie, High Life, with Robert Pattinson. He continues to impress me as him and the entire cast was good(Mia Goth, Juliette Binoche, André Benjamin). The film itself is a tough nut to crack. It had some really interesting ideas and gorgeous space visuals, but it also was pretty pretentious at times. Like weird for the sake of being weird moments. I was looking forward to this for a while so I was sort of letdown overall.

I took in another sci-fi film, Prospect, with Pedro Pascal. It was a pretty straight forward one as a father-daughter travel to a planet to try and prospect a scarce material, and shit goes awry. Nothing groundbreaking but it was a solid little movie that looked great. I’d recommend.

I rewatched Hereditary recently(in preparation for Misommar), and this movie is an instant classic in my eyes. I loved the dark atmosphere, acting and foreboding sense of dread the whole time. The final act is wild too. A lot of people didn’t like the last 5 minutes, but the more I see it the more I appreciate it. All the pieces fitting perfectly together at the end.

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I found a High Life to be terrible. So boring.

In other news, we had movie night with our neighbors last night to introduce my wife and my neighbor's wife to LA Confidential. That was a rousing success.

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Watched three movies this weekend. First up was Captain Marvel. I'm not a Marvel fan boy/girl, so I tend to take these movies for what they are. I thought the movie was okay, but largely forgettable. Second up was the big disappointment, Us. I expected so much from this film and it did not live up. Peele definitely took a big swing with this one, and while it was solid from a technical stand point, I found the plot to be kind of boring. Perhaps this was a good example of why we hate having movies spoiled (I usually don't, but a friend told me the twist in it a while back). And lastly, I checked out A Fistful of Dollars. It's not as good as some of Leone's other Westerns, but it's still a great movie. I highly recommend it. 

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For some inexplicable reason I decided to continue watching the second season of The Handmaid’s Tale

And it quickly reminded me of why I stopped watching in the first place. Season 1 was well produced and enjoyable if someone is into sociopolitical dystopias. But season 2 is a complete trainwreck in terms of plot, storytelling and narrative. And characters too kinda. 

All this story does is keep circling and circling around the same thing they have established ten thousand times over: this is a horrible world where women are oppressed and abused by religion and men.There is literally no progress in the story whatsoever. Every single time we try to move forward or backwards or sideways, we always always come back to the same exact setup and prototypical scenes because all this show aims to do is shock me with how horrible this world is and how oppressed the women are- as if I didn’t get it for the first 9999 times. It is so boring and so repetitive and frankly the point came where I just no longer care and the awful scenes do nothing for me because I’ve seen all of them ten times already. 

Not to mention that in season 2 common sense was also casually thrown out of the window like nobody’s business. I mean how stupid can these characters be? And not just as a collective, a tyrannical system that is supposed to be stupid. As individuals and small groups as well. The lost potential is just piling and piling and piling. Ugh, it is so bad. So so bad. 

Spoiler

random examples: 

- so you leave the paperwork with your husband’s forged signature on your husband’s desk after you forged it because he refused to sign willingly? Really? You are THAT stupid? 

- so your recently injured and hospitalized husband asks you to let him beat you and you just do it? He is physically weakened. Like wasn’t there a lamp or a vase in that study to flung against his head so they can call the ambulance and rehospitalize him? Why didn’t anybody think of slowly poisoning him in the first place? Didn’t these people watch tv before they built this system? 

- so you write a world famous female doctor who the system turned into a housekeeper and present her in an episode that’s all about how bending the ridiculous system provides a more desirable outcome both for the system and the individuals, only to NOT have this character save the baby? What was the fucking point? How and why would you miss a chance to highlight that women are skillful and have professional and intellectual merit the system could benefit from therefore their oppression is the wrong direction? I mean this is so much more important and heavy than to give Janine a cutsie scene and have your episode say, oh a baby is sick, well, her birth mother’s hands will magically cure her? How does that make any sense at all as a narrative or just as a plot element? 

- and the worst of all. Does nobody care that they just put back 4-5 women who lived in a nuclear wasteland into the households of high ranking officials and their wives/children? Is it medically safe to even perform the ceremony with these women or are they even expected to still be fertile and deliver healthy children? Weren’t these women previously suffering from all kinds of infections and radiation symptoms? Why? How? I can’t even... 

 

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5 hours ago, Ramsay B. said:

I rewatched Hereditary recently(in preparation for Misommar), and this movie is an instant classic in my eyes. I loved the dark atmosphere, acting and foreboding sense of dread the whole time. The final act is wild too. A lot of people didn’t like the last 5 minutes, but the more I see it the more I appreciate it. All the pieces fitting perfectly together at the end.

My favorite modern horror movie by far. What an absolute joke that Toni Collette got snubbed on an Oscar nomination. Can’t wait for Midsommar. It’s right there with Once Upon A Time in Hollywood as my most anticipated movie of the summer. 

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off work injured, getting a chance to clear my backlog. 

  • Finished S4 of Better Call Saul, really enjoyed it towards the end when everything started to finally speed up.  
  • Working my way through S2 of Westworld, which is also starting to get good around ep 6-7
  • The Deuce S2 is slow, but still enjoyable. 
  • Also doing my annual re watch of parks and rec, i'm so in love with Lesley Knope.  I think she might be the best person in the history of the world (not S1 though). 

 

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5 hours ago, BigFatCoward said:

off work injured, getting a chance to clear my backlog. 

  • Finished S4 of Better Call Saul, really enjoyed it towards the end when everything started to finally speed up.  
  • Working my way through S2 of Westworld, which is also starting to get good around ep 6-7
  • The Deuce S2 is slow, but still enjoyable. 
  • Also doing my annual re watch of parks and rec, i'm so in love with Lesley Knope.  I think she might be the best person in the history of the world (not S1 though). 

 

Leslie Knope is my idol. I will never not cry with laughter at the snakejuice incident.

Or the shuffle over the ice rink.

Or celebrate the relationship between her and Ron over 6 seasons (yes we ignore season 1 Leslie, always. Not as bad as some claim but clearly the show hadnt found its feet or voice. Thank the network it got a second season)

Damn that show is just too good.

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