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Watch, Watched, Watching: Midsommar Night Blues


Ramsay B.

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9 minutes ago, Mark Antony said:

Mindhunter 

 

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yeah I thought it was funny how wrong Holden/Tench were about nearly every btk characteristic. I loved how Kemper pretty much nailed the btk profile and called out the fact that they were only interviewing killers who had been caught so there was a bias in that. Kemper steals the show every scene he is in.

 

Yeah, that was interesting. One other thing I noticed:

Spoiler

When Kemper reels off a list of active serial killers I didn't recognise most of them but one of them was the EAR/Golden State killer they recently caught by dna testing and it's notable that he doesn't match many of the baseline assumptions Holden is making about serial killers either.

 

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9 minutes ago, Mexal said:

I liked it. I ignored the acting and just enjoyed the action. If you turn your mind off, it's pretty good. There is a lull mid way through when they make a fundamental plot change.

I appreciated the plot change as it didn't appear to be a show that throws the plot in unexpected ways. 

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Watched the first episode of the new HBO comedy series The Righteous Gemstones. Pretty funny. I loved Vice Principals and Eastbound and Down so I’m hopeful this one will be as good since it’s also by Danny McBride and Jody Hill.   

One particular scene had me dying...

when Danny McBride backs the car up from way across the parking lot to run over the other blackmailer

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6 hours ago, ljkeane said:

I saw Once Upon a Time in Hollywood last night. It wasn't exactly what I was expecting and it's a bit odd but it was fun and I enjoyed it quite a lot. One thing which did give me a bit of pause was

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Cliff killing and potentially murdering his wife. It puts a whole different tone on following him being cool round 60's LA and then killing a bunch of Manson Family members if he did.

Continuing the Manson theme I've also recently finished watching season 2 of Mindhunter. It's a very good series but I'm wondering what the point of having little clips of the BTK killer throughout the series is. A lot of focus on a serial killer who wasn't caught by criminal profiling in a series about the development of criminal profiling does make me wonder if the entire point is that what they're doing is in fact bullshit.  

This makes sense, as profiling is far from being a perfect science (if it can be called a science at all), and they do point out certain blind spots and problems with what they are trying to do during season 2.

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4 hours ago, Nictarion said:

Watched the first episode of the new HBO comedy series The Righteous Gemstones. Pretty funny. I loved Vice Principals and Eastbound and Down so I’m hopeful this one will be as good since it’s also by Danny McBride and Jody Hill.   

One particular scene had me dying...

 

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when Danny McBride backs the car up from way across the parking lot to run over the other blackmailer

 

Good to hear. I been looking forward to it a long time - and not just because I enjoy all three of the lead actors (and hear great things about Edi Patterson). A close friend has some sort of non-speaking role in it, with her dance company. She has been a law abiding citizen with her NDA refusing to tell me a thing about her part - they are surely in the background at some point, she is just being secretive to take the piss. I know that DeVine cracked them up incessantly, and McBride was very courteous and pleasant despite his on-screen roles.

Will be binging it soon at a friends with HBO GO, hope we both enjoy it!

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On 8/19/2019 at 6:30 PM, Nictarion said:

I don’t know if you’ve made it any further, but Holden definitely has the least amount of focus this season. Both, Bill and Wendy’s personal lives get their own storylines, whereas Holden it’s just about the work this time around. 

I'm 4 episodes in and pleased we're getting more of Tench and Carr's home life rather Holden's. I still liked the Atlanta episode where . . .

Spoiler

Holden thought he was going on a date with the hotel employee only to find out she wanted him to help the mothers of the murdered children.

 

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I saw booksmart yesterday. A nice little coming-of-age comedy. The leads were really good, and I came away impressed with Olivia Wilde’s directorial debut. 

I watched Apocalypse Now for the first time in a while. It’s so damn great. Am I the only one who didn’t know that the caribou killed at the end was real? I went down a slight rabbit hole and watched the documentary Hearts of Darkness about the hellish filming of the movie. Apparently Eleanor Coppola filmed a tribe doing the honors because they were going to kill it anyways. The doc was great and I highly recommend for anyone who loves AN.

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On 8/20/2019 at 12:41 PM, Zorral said:

I've gotten through Mind Hunters' season 2 through episode 6.  My greatest criticism is

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The insertion of Tench's son as involved with the murder of a 3 year old boy.  It never happened, and it's a clumsy, lurching, needless underlining about what goes on behind the closed doors of suburbia -- particularly since it didn't happen -- a smear of the real life character and his family.

 

Agree with you 100%, it feels clunky and obvious especially during the Manson interview, too ham fisted for my tastes.

I do really like this series though, and I think some of the things they are showing us is that they aren't perfect and that the profiling, especially in the early stages isn't perfect. They were making broad assumptions based on minimal information. Kemper knew more than them and they didn't want to hear it because it didn't fit what they wanted it to fit.

As to the BTK thing, I like that they are showing bits and pieces as we go. I assume it's to show how they were learning, how he didn't fit what they were thinking. 

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33 minutes ago, Ramsay B. said:

I watched Apocalypse Now for the first time in a while. It’s so damn great. Am I the only one who didn’t know that the caribou killed at the end was real? I went down a slight rabbit hole and watched the documentary Hearts of Darkness about the hellish filming of the movie. Apparently Eleanor Coppola filmed a tribe doing the honors because they were going to kill it anyways. The doc was great and I highly recommend for anyone who loves AN.

I'll have to check that out. AN is my favorite war film. It will be interesting to see what they do with the final cut. Hopefully they clean up some of the French detour. That's really the only part of the movie I'm not that fond of. 

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2 hours ago, Triskele said:

I finished MIndhunter S2 and liked it plenty but felt like S1 was more interesting.

Just read this review which makes the case that S2 was better in some particular ways and makes good points on the individual merits.  

I think that S1 got a bit more into the whole mind-hunting element of the thing more though which is why I preferred it.  

I also just finished S2 and I found it better than S1. S1 seemed very slow to me. 

Spoiler

I didn't like the whole story line in S2 of Tesch son being involved in the murder. It seemed too tied to the Charles Manson interview where he was talking about, "your lost kids did this, they are the murderers I just removed the fear".  The whole thing didn't feel right for the show.

There is one obvious question at the end.

Spoiler

Where did the blood come from that Ford was cleaning off his cuff? Also, this season ended in 1981, at least that's when Wayne Williams was arrested. BTK is active until 1991, so are we going to see BTK in S3, a time jump maybe, it seems like we will since he has been getting scenes this whole season.

I hope this gets another season, I know I will be watching.

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Finally been able to watch season 1 of the terror. Worth the wait as i thought it was excellent and would easily have been a top show of 2018 and is one of the best shows I've watched this year.

I don't know if it's the Jared Harris connection or the stark survival horror but it reminded me a lot of Chernobyl in terms of quality. I think i might just be a sucker for the heroism in lost causes. The show did an excellent job of making me want the characters to survive even though history told me upfront it wouldn't happen.

Just a class production on all levels. Hopefully i can get hold of the second season and that the quality is maintained in a different story.

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2 hours ago, Triskele said:

Nice, man!  This was such a good season of TV, so glad you got to it and enjoyed it.  It's a season that stuck with me and I still think about.

Has Harris ever done anything that he wasn't great at?  I am thinking of this, Mad Men, Chernobyl, and The Expanse.  The absolute man every time, and obviously after Mad Men people were interested.

I am enjoying S2 so far two episodes in, but it's way early.  Very strong new lead actor that I don't know from before and the "terror" element is only hinted at and a bit difficult to gauge so far, but I do see some signs that it's being made in the same mold as that first season.  

On the Wu Assassins bad acting:  I did think a bit about to what extent a couple of those folks were foreign before posting what I did, and I'm sort of torn.  I sure the fuck have never acted in a secondary language let alone spoken one well.  But I also think that it's far from unheard of for actors who aren't 100% fluent to act and not be enormously wooden.  

You're right in "the terror" really getting stuck in your head once there. I guess the draw is we are unlikely to ever know exactly what happened yet know the end result making it so ripe for a story. 

It's true that Harris is uniformly excellent in whatever he's in especially if it's TV (I'm guilty of being underwhelmed by him being Moriarty in the RDJ Sherlock films but that was probably more due to not knowing who he was - if he was announced in that role now I'd be excited). From "the terror" and "chernobyl" alone he deserves to break out into bigger roles or have the option to pick what he wants (although he maybe does this already?)

Some of the Wu Cast are there primarily for their stunt/fighting capabilities so delivering lines possibly isn't their strongest suit and I think it tends to correlate that the weaker performances are the ones who can do the most impressive action sequences eg Kai and Zan while Tommy Wah is probably the stronger actor but doesn't jump around. I can't help draw comparisons with "Warrior" though where they are a bit more sensible in their use of actors who may speak english as a second language. Joe Taslim and Iko Uwai both have very similar backgrounds and careers (usually appearing together in films) and similar acting capability. In Warrior Taslim is given a role where he's the silent type and mainly badass fighter while Uwai is made the lead in Wu assassins meaning he has to carry the show and deliver far more lines. I think the makers of warrior have been more sensible in their deployment of actors. Luckily Wu Assassins is fun enough for the wooden acting scattered throughout not to be much of a distraction - it's more noticeable when there's a long period of inaction.

I'm always impressed when actors of any language are put in situations where they are delivering lines in languages they are not fluent in (or mastered in adulthood) or even scarier have no comprehension of at all. The latter scenario is probably the mark of a great actor when it comes off not only as genuine but maintains the emotion and context. Looping this back to Jared Harris - his delivery of the eskimo language in "The terror" not only felt genuine but also had an implied hesitance to show he wasn't a native speaker. And in the "expanse" he's so good at the pidgin english used by belters that you think he's talked like that all his life. He's arguably too good at it as he sets too high a bar for the other cast members who have to use the dialect.

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5 hours ago, Martell Spy said:

Got YouTube Premium and watching Cobra Kai season 1. (There are 2 seasons out)  It is awesome. It is a rags to riches story, about one humble man reviving the chaotic evil dojo Cobra Kai.

I keep hearing that this is great, but I just can't get my head around it.  The premise sounds so cheesy.

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Watched the first episode of Another Life on Netflix. All though it I kept thinking "Is this supposed to be satire, a joke?" Then I see on Rotten Tomatoes it's got a critics rating of 6%.

I think what did me in is when they woke up the "crew" of the Salvare and you see them all together, it's an important serious mission and you've got over-the-top resentful first officer demoted from captain, Hugo from Lost's brother, a glamour girl that can't be interested in anything except her iphone, and the rest of the crew of 20-somethings that all look like they belong in a coffee house rather than on a space ship.

I just couldn't take any of it seriously.

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Watched the premiere of On Becoming a God in Central Florida with Kirsten Dunst. Set in the 1992 Orlando area, Dunst's character Krystal Stubbs works for minimum wage at a water park while her husband sells insurance but spends most of time obsessed with a get rich pyramid scheme. Tragedy ensues and Dunst decides to make her way up in the scheme.  I liked it, but I really cringe at the styles of the early 90s, remembering I used to wear this shit.

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This month I've been re-watching Stargate Atlantis. From the start, the show holds up better than the early seasons of SG-1, probably because of the showrunners were more experienced, and they had the budget to make it look good. I'm currently past mid-point of season 3, which is my favorite season.

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9 hours ago, BigFatCoward said:

I keep hearing that this is great, but I just can't get my head around it.  The premise sounds so cheesy.

Well, it helps if you are a fan of the 80's movies, but really it was just well-executed. It deals a lot with moral complexity, surprisingly given the source material. And how there are 2 sides to every story. Also, it is as much about a new generation of young characters as it is about the older characters. 

One of the great things they did is that the core members of the new Cobra Kai dojo are some high-school students that were getting picked on. 

Also, in the early episodes the show is kind of mostly shown from the viewpoint of John Lawrence, who was one of the villains of the first movie. His life has kind of hit rock bottom and everything around that story-line and him trying to fix his life is amazing.

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9 hours ago, BigFatCoward said:

I keep hearing that this is great, but I just can't get my head around it.  The premise sounds so cheesy.

I used to hold the same opinion until I finally gave the series a shot. It's better written and less cheesy than you'd think. 

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