Watch, Watched, Watching: Hunting Minds

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

9 hours ago, Heartofice said:

It was definitively pretty fun, mainly due to a good central performance and a lighthearted script.

But wow it was stupid by the end.

The writers clearly just thought ‘ok let’s do Groundhog Day but with murder and teens!’ but never got further than that.

i was sitting there the whole time going ‘ forget Groundhog Day forget Groundhog Day’. But you can’t because it has a very similar arc and does so many similar things with the idea. They even reference it!!

That was kind of the point though. They were leaning into it while coming as close as possible to breaking the fourth wall without actually doing so.  

[Heartofice]

11 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

That was kind of the point though. They were leaning into it while coming as close as possible to breaking the fourth wall without actually doing so.  

Felt like an apology to me. Like ‘yeah we know we copied it but at least we were honest’

Didn’t  feel like a get out of jail free card.

[DireWolfSpirit]

11 hours ago, dog-days said:

Just finished Charité, a German TV drama set in 1888 in the Berlin hospital of the same name. Found it very watchable. Although the stories and dialogue around the original characters tended towards the clunky and obvious, the drama based on the historical characters was great, and the production values seemed pretty good to me too. I'd love to go on to read some non-fiction based on the era to learn a bit more about Vichow, Ehrlich, Behring and Koch, and the hospital itself. It's available on Netflix. There's also a second series set at the Charité between 1943 and 1945. 

 

I really liked the one between 1943-45, a fascinating story based on the real and disturbing history at the property.

[dog-days]

15 minutes ago, DireWolfSpirit said:

I really liked the one between 1943-45, a fascinating story based on the real and disturbing history at the property.

Just started to watch it last night. Looking forward to the rest - with a certain amount of apprehension given the era. 

[Astromech]

I finished the series Unbelievable. The relationship between the two detectives was well done. I thought Merritt Weaver was very good in the series Godless and she was even better in Unbelievable.

[Ramsay B.]

I finally watched Blue Valentine. Actually not as depressing as I thought it would be, but definitely not an uplifter either. Some scenes were tough to watch though as the last few months of a failed relationship can obviously get awful, and awkward at times. Williams and Gosling were great too. 

Blue is the Warmest Color is likely up next. I might have to split that one up though... 187 minutes!

Got my tickets for The Lighthouse for Thursday. Excited

[redriver]

On 10/15/2019 at 7:59 PM, Zorral said:

The commentators to the Guardian review at least were majority unfavorable though.

Seen the first two episodes.I'm certainly engaged.Decent set up.Good production values.

Too early to give an overall assessment ,but yes I'll continue watching.

[HexMachina]

Watching The Laundromat. Big name cast and its holding my interest so far. Steep bringing her A game and not just phoning it in

[Veltigar]

Saw the latest episode of South Park. For me this 4th episode was the best they have done in years. They took on an important societal issue in a hilariously shocking and completely random way! I continue to be impressed by how this show keeps on evolving with the times.

 

Spoiler

1) Daniel Plainview from There will be Blood repurposed as a peddler of plant-based meat was marvelous

2) Cartman's final comment on the junk quality of Impossible meat and others was poignant

3) Randy and Towly killing those cows is one of the best scenes in South Park's history 

 

[DireWolfSpirit]

Shame the NBA has their balls in China's purse. It reminded me of how Tarantino "not having it,"  with China attempting to boss him.

 https://variety.com/2019/film/news/quentin-tarantino-once-upon-a-time-in-hollywood-china-1203375792/

 

[Nictarion]

4 minutes ago, Triskele said:

Jojo Rabbit was great.  Waititi's cred goes up even higher.  

Not playing near me until the end of the month. 

[drawkcabi]

3 episodes in on the Paul Rudd Netflix series Living With Your Self that just dropped on Friday.

Take the Michael Keaton movie Multiplicity and the Rick and Morty episode where they go to a spa and are "cleansed" of all their negativity blend them together and you have this show.

I'm not loving it, but I like it enough and am interested enough to keep watching, and apparently the way you always can tell the Paul Rudds apart is that one of them doesn't have good water pressure to wash their hair.

[red snow]

On 10/16/2019 at 10:54 PM, Heartofice said:

Seems to have gone unnoticed that Preacher has come to an end. 
 

An often frustrating show, it was as often dull and meandering as it was brilliantly over the top. I’m sad to see it go, but also kinda glad it went out reasonably strongly.

I could have done with one less season than we got and a bit more impetus throughout, because it often felt like the same plot points and themes were repeated and didn’t go anywhere.

But it did have characters that stick with you, Cassidy is brilliant. It’s hard to dislike a show that has a fist fight between Jesus and Hitler. It often felt like the show didn’t care who it annoyed and just did whatever it wanted.

I’ll miss it, but not that much.

I think it was wise to end it when it did. I think 3 and 4 were the better seasons at least. It also had some good characters, it's just a shame that Jesse and Tulip were the focus and least interesting. Starr and Cassidy were great at times though and there were some really imaginative additions to the original comic

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

I finally saw the original Buffy the Vampire Slayer movie in whole. It’s pretty much what I expected, fun, but not scary at all. I’ve got to say, Original Buffy > SMG! Yeah, I said it (I never watched the T.V. show outside of some episodes in passing).

The next movie is a weird selection: Ferdinand. It’s a great film for young children.

[Raja]

Saw this the other day, it's a short 20 minute netflix documentary. Man, it made me quite sad.

 

[Annara Snow]

15 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

I finally saw the original Buffy the Vampire Slayer movie in whole. It’s pretty much what I expected, fun, but not scary at all. I’ve got to say, Original Buffy > SMG! Yeah, I said it (

 

Quote

I never watched the T.V. show outside of some episodes in passing).

...And that explains it. 

[Zorral]

The first episode of HBO's Catherine the Great went up last night.  Beyond Helen Mirren as the empress, clothes and candles, splendiferous halls and ceilings, and sex, not a whole lot going on, alas.  But then Helen Mirren in 18th century silks and satins, playing 40 - 50 year old Catherine, and the beefy Russian young men who serve her reign, might be enough?

 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

7 hours ago, Annara Snow said:

 

...And that explains it. 

Eh, the T.V. show just didn't do anything for me.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

I forgot to mention I also saw Crawl over the weekend. It's exactly what you'd expect, dumb but can be fun if that type of movie is your thing. I don't regret seeing it, but I know I'll probably never have a desire to see it again. Too many plot holes fixed by unrealistic events.

[Veltigar]

I finally got around to seeing Sing Street. Absolutely loved it, can we force John Carney to make more of his delightful films? It's kind of hard to give my full appraisal of the film without going into spoiler territory, especially as I would like to relate it to Carney's other two brilliant films (Once & Begin Again). I'll give it a go however. A

s always, Carney manages to make a film that is sweet, without being saccharin. It's earnest, heartfelt and it has a ring of truth in it due to the ways in which it shows how music can impact our lives, how love can lift us up and tear us down and what it's like to be young and filled of dreams.

The music is fun, the actors are great. Particular shout-out to Jack Reynor's Brendan and of course, the lovely Lucy Boynton turn as Raphina. She's one to watch I think. It's shot in Carney's trademark style and it just breathes the time period. Very effective evocation of locale. A bit like Derry Girls actually, although this one does it for the Republic of Ireland and the eighties instead of Northern-Ireland and the nineties.

If you feel down and you just want something to smile about, check this out. 

Spoiler

I really loved the film, but I find it difficult to rank it within Carney's filmography. It's even sweeter than Begin Again and Once. And it is superfunny in the way it shows the ordinariness of life happening around our little band of protagonists. For example, when the lovebirds run away in the end, there is a guy puking in the alley in the background and it's just such a good way of grounding this story in reality. It's little details like that which make the narrative so strong.

One downside is that the music is not as strong as in the other two films. There is not that one stand out song you remember, which is a sort of a shame. All the songs are good and perhaps they'll grow on me, but that's my first hunch. If only it had one of those songs and this would have been a perfect movie for me. Or as close to perfect as we humans can get anyways.

I also loved that for once, finally, we get to see a happy ending from Carney (or one that can be interpreted like that anyways). It's one of the great ironies of our time that the best romantic film maker of the past decade never gives his films a romantic ending. They are always happy in a way, but damn it, when I watched Begin Again I found out how old-fashioned I still am. When the kids in this filming got away, for at least their temporary happy ending of love, I was ridiculously happy