Watch, Watched, Watching: Hunting Minds

[williamjm]

I finished the second (and final) season of The Punisher. I really liked the first season, while I still liked the second season I think it wasn't as good. For some reason the Marvel Netflix shows always seem to struggle when they try to tell more than one story in a season and this is no exception. The 'Pilgrim' plot gets off to a strong start but after a few episodes it gets mostly forgotten as the show retreads the Billy Russo plot from the first season. While Ben Barnes does his best with the role, I don't feel the plot had much to add to the first season. I still think John Bernthal is great as the Punisher and if they're not going to make any more it's not a bad point to end on, but the second season did have the potential to be better than it was.

[Nictarion]

2 hours ago, williamjm said:

I finished the second (and final) season of The Punisher. I really liked the first season, while I still liked the second season I think it wasn't as good. For some reason the Marvel Netflix shows always seem to struggle when they try to tell more than one story in a season and this is no exception. The 'Pilgrim' plot gets off to a strong start but after a few episodes it gets mostly forgotten as the show retreads the Billy Russo plot from the first season. While Ben Barnes does his best with the role, I don't feel the plot had much to add to the first season. I still think John Bernthal is great as the Punisher and if they're not going to make any more it's not a bad point to end on, but the second season did have the potential to be better than it was.

I just want to see him reprise the role again. Kind of like Ryan Reynolds getting a second chance at Deadpool. Not that the Punisher series was bad by any means, but that casting was just so perfect I want to see him In another show, or even a movie. 

[Ramsay B.]

I watched the documentary Abducted in Plain Sight recently. This was a pretty maddening one. 

Spoiler

I understand that these people were victims of a master manipulator, and it was a time when pedophiles were not really understood at all, etc.- but fucking damn. Some of the parents’ actions were insane. Letting Berchtold “lay” with their daughter multiple times a week. The wife having an affair with Berchtold AFTER he already kidnapped her daughter and he blackmailed the couple. The husband jerking him off? 

This all would’ve been far fetched for a bad movie. Craziness 

 

[Aemon Stark]

Finally got around to seeing Ad Astra. On the one hand I LOVED what we saw of the world building, especially the the depiction of routine private space travel, moon colonies, Mars base, and such. The plot and character beats mostly worked, though it does have something of a "Apocalypse Now in Space" arc to it. Generally the music and visuals were great. Brad Pitt was very restrained and credible - considering how singular a character he ended up being, the movie could have failed entirely if he hadn't been up to it. 

And yet the script was fairly bereft of actual tension. While I'll grant that Interstellar is a flawed film, it has a few absolutely standout sequences that stay with me, not to mention unhinged Matt Damon. As a space movie, Ad Astra had even more impressive setpieces and visuals, but it crammed far too much into its running time without developing much tension. 

Spoiler

Most of the supporting character beats just didn't work or else felt underwritten. Donald Sutherland, for example, suddenly appeared without warning and then disappeared almost as quickly, never to return. Liv Tyler's ex-wife character might have been better as an actual presence rather than a memory. The eventually apparently murderous ship crew were scarcely introduced, only to return and then almost immediately die. In the meantime, the Mars base director got introduced and dismissed quickly (though with a weird almost looking-at-the-camera exit), only to come back to give revelations and suggest McBride go for a swim in one of Mars' many underground lakes (??????). 

Some of the suspense scenes weren't suspenseful. The Moon rover ambush should have been exhilarating, but it was possibly too short and too foreshadowed. The diversion to the Norwegian space station was probably the most tense, but it was also pointless. 

The bottom line is that the script didn't quite work. I don't know if that was a directing, editing, or writing problem, but I really felt that I should have, well, felt more. Just too many ideas, stretched thin, and not well enough developed. 

[A True Kaniggit]

Didn’t binge the 8 episodes of Bojack Horseman that are out right now. 

I meant to last night, but I felt a headache coming on during the second and decided to go to sleep instead. So I’ll be watching the other 6 in a little bit. 

Poor Princess Carolyn. Why did it have to be a porcupine?

[dbunting]

I'm still doing a rewatch of Breaking Bad. Halfway through the final season. Still holds up.

[Nictarion]

Making my way through the filmography of Denis Villeneuve (who’s one of my absolute favorite working directors right now), so tonight I watched Incendies, and it pretty much blew me away. Not an easy watch, as it’s some really heavy stuff, but it’s a powerful film. As much as I love Sicario, Arrival, BR 2049, etc, I think this might be his best.

[Stannis Eats No Peaches]

1 hour ago, Nictarion said:

Making my way through the filmography of Denis Villeneuve (who’s one of my absolute favorite working directors right now), so tonight I watched Incendies, and it pretty much blew me away. Not an easy watch, as it’s some really heavy stuff, but it’s a powerful film. As much as I love Sicario, Arrival, BR 2049, etc, I think this might be his best.

I watched this years ago before I’d heard of Villeneuve. Actually a teacher at school recommended it to me. Jesus Christ I was not anticipating it at all.

[Nictarion]

6 hours ago, Stannis Eats No Peaches said:

I watched this years ago before I’d heard of Villeneuve. Actually a teacher at school recommended it to me. Jesus Christ I was not anticipating it at all.

Right? I would definitely recommend people not reading anything about it beforehand. I looked at a very brief description of the plot, but that was it. 

This will definitely be a film that stays with me for quite a while. 

[briantw]

17 hours ago, williamjm said:

I finished the second (and final) season of The Punisher. I really liked the first season, while I still liked the second season I think it wasn't as good. For some reason the Marvel Netflix shows always seem to struggle when they try to tell more than one story in a season and this is no exception. The 'Pilgrim' plot gets off to a strong start but after a few episodes it gets mostly forgotten as the show retreads the Billy Russo plot from the first season. While Ben Barnes does his best with the role, I don't feel the plot had much to add to the first season. I still think John Bernthal is great as the Punisher and if they're not going to make any more it's not a bad point to end on, but the second season did have the potential to be better than it was.

I was really annoyed by how the trailers for season two hinted that the two plot lines would connect, which would have made a ton of sense and tied the whole thing together, but then they just never do.  

[Veltigar]

Rewatched a few episodes of Spartacus Blood & Sands. Love this show really XD

[williamjm]

57 minutes ago, briantw said:

I was really annoyed by how the trailers for season two hinted that the two plot lines would connect, which would have made a ton of sense and tied the whole thing together, but then they just never do.  

Early on I was wondering if the senator's family were going to hire/recruit Billy to work for them, which would have seemed like an obvious move to make if they want someone to take on Frank.

[Isis]

On holiday a few weeks back we watched a film called Await Further Instructions which was frankly horrible. For the first 30-45 minutes it was just uncomfortable, challenging and at times faintly cathartic. But then as it continued it became just relentlessly grim, bleak and just deeply horrible and unpleasant to watch. No happy ending either. I cannot honestly recommend it to anyone. 

On a brighter note, I went to see Hamilton for the second time and it was even better than the first time. This time round I treated myself to the best seats in the house and it made a difference being able to see everything with no obstructed view. It meant that you could catch all of the little bits and pieces that add to the whole, especially in the funny parts. There were lots of little things I missed the first time round (unless they just weren't there, which I doubt) because I was so close to the stage but very far over to the left hand side. I will probably go back again.

[GallowKnight]

6 hours ago, Veltigar said:

Rewatched a few episodes of Spartacus Blood & Sands. Love this show really XD

Hey, I'm also rewatching Blood & Sand. It's still great.

[Derfel Cadarn]

10 hours ago, GallowKnight said:

Hey, I'm also rewatching Blood & Sand. It's still great.

I’m doing a rewatch too, in chronological order. Finished Gods of the Arena, will start Blood and Sand soon.

[GallowKnight]

12 minutes ago, Derfel Cadarn said:

I’m doing a rewatch too, in chronological order. Finished Gods of the Arena, will start Blood and Sand soon.

I started out with Gods of the Arena too, as it is generally my go to season for Spartacus rewatching. I'm not sure if I'm going to keep going with Vengeance and War of the Damned though.

[Astromech]

I watched the first season of the Italian series, Baby.  A bunch of rich Italian kids at an elite school with massive issues. It was a train wreck you can't avert your eyes from. Ridiculous situations they get themselves into because they are all so miserably rich. Why are rich people so unhappy? In spite of its problems, it was kind of addictive. I dug the soundtrack. 

[Heartofice]

On 10/21/2019 at 7:38 AM, drawkcabi said:

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.

I finished the series pretty quickly and I really enjoyed it. It was on the surface a pretty lightweight romp, but I thought it actually raised some interesting issues. It was much more interesting that Mulitplicity and didn't just take the most shallow take on that scenario. 

Also Rudd and Aisling Bea were great together. I could watch Rudd in anything and I was a fan of Bea's anyway from her comedy, and she does a great job here. 

Its a really easy watch, recommended.

[williamjm]

I watched Terminator : Dark Fate. The Terminator sequels post-T2 have been increasingly confused and this film perhaps understandably decides to ignore all of them and do something that follows on directly from T2. It is good having Linda Hamilton back as Sarah Connor, since the first two films were as much about her as the Terminators her absence from the other sequels did mean they felt a bit lacking. I think this might be the best of the Terminator films since T2, although it does feel it isn't doing anything particularly new, it's more just shuffling around the same plot elements as before. The action scenes are decent, although again it does feel like we've seen most of it before.

[KingintheNorth4]

Me and the family had our annual Halloween Party last night. We watched two films, the first being Annihilation. It was a very atmospheric, thought provoking film, without being too pretentious. The sci-fi visuals were great, and the performances were solid as well. It's theme reminded me of the film Solaris, which also dealt with attempting to quantify and understand the unknown.

The second film we watched was The Curse of La Llorona. It was meh. Your typical jump scare fueled horror film.