Watch, Watched, Watching: Hindsight in 2020

[Astromech]

30 minutes ago, BigFatCoward said:

There is a great book about the Yorkshire ripper called Wicked Beyond Belief. He would have been caught in minutes with todays tech, just a simple search on a database would have shown him as a person of interest in so many of the incidents. But it was all recorded on paper, relying on humans to make the links. I don't know how we used to catch anyone to be honest (it might be why there used to be so much 'fitting up'). 

Though not completely about the Yorkshire Ripper, I found the Red Riding trilogy of films quite good.

 

Finished Spartacus. Great series. 

[Isis]

1 hour ago, BigFatCoward said:

There is a great book about the Yorkshire ripper called Wicked Beyond Belief. He would have been caught in minutes with todays tech, just a simple search on a database would have shown him as a person of interest in so many of the incidents. But it was all recorded on paper, relying on humans to make the links. I don't know how we used to catch anyone to be honest (it might be why there used to be so much 'fitting up'). 

Almost like if nobody sees you do it, then there is insufficient evidence (back then).

The other side to these investigations is that there was a lot of shoddy policing going on. Have you watched The Confession Killer, where a dude literally confesses to loads of murders and spends years chatting to his mates (the coppers) about them. Be interesting to see what you think of that.

1 hour ago, Astromech said:

Though not completely about the Yorkshire Ripper, I found the Red Riding trilogy of films quite good.

I meant to watch this at the time but kept forgetting. Are they films or was it a TV series?

[Astromech]

11 hours ago, Isis said:

 

I meant to watch this at the time but kept forgetting. Are they films or was it a TV series?

I watched them as films on HBO. Looks like they were originally a three-part television adaptation of the Red Riding Quartet by David Peace. I didn't realize it was a quartet. The films, or the three feature-length adaptations, were of three of those novels: Red Riding 1974, Red Riding 1977, Red Riding 1980 and Red Riding 1983. The films were Red Riding Riding 1974, Red Riding 1980 and Red Riding 1983. 

[Kalbear]

Gentlemen was indeed fucking awesome. Great job by hugh grant. 

[Raja]

Haven't seen The Gentleman yet, but came across one of these videos from a critic that I watch/ read/ listen to - since I haven't seen it, I can't fully comment on it but I'll see how I feel after I see it

 

[Kalbear]

2 hours ago, Raja said:

Haven't seen The Gentleman yet, but came across one of these videos from a critic that I watch/ read/ listen to - since I haven't seen it, I can't fully comment on it but I'll see how I feel after I see it

 

It's an entirely reasonable take that I completely support and buy. My personal take is that most of the characters who use these kinds of slurs are pretty horrible people who are doing it to provoke intentionally and are being assholes about it, but I suspect I missed some, and it's definitely the case that Pierson is portrayed as one hell of an awesome guy. 

[williamjm]

I finished watching Carnival Row, which I had started a while back but then stalled after two episodes. Once I started again I thought the rest of the season was stronger, I think initially the murder investigation seems less interesting than the other plotlines in the show, but it works better when it starts to tie into those plotlines. I thought Bloom and Delevigne were decent in the lead roles, while David Gyasi and Tamzin Merchant managed to make their plotline work well even if it never quite intersected with the rest of the plot (I guess this may happen in season 2). It did feel like Jared Harris was a bit underused.

It's tempting to compare it to The Witcher, since they're both attempts by streaming services to do a post-GoT fantasy show. I think in many ways Carnival Row is better made, the non-human characters are a lot more convincing, I thought the production design was more impressive and the plotting is more coherent. I think maybe The Witcher might be more fun overall, but I liked both of them.

[Zorral]

Because of the James Bond reboot / retro fit discussion in this forum recently and because it's streaming on netflix I watched Golden Eye, the Pierce Brosnan Bond from 1995. I hadn't seen it before. How this film looks and sounds to somebody watching it in 1995 vs now, has to be very different, particularly for an American.  Not the technology or special effects or clothes or locations -- just the sense of USian - British top of the world we are! we are! because the Soviet Union has imploded and gone away! We've proved what we always prove -- we are so superior in everything. They even had the fun of pretending to locate part of the movie in Cuba, which Russia cut loose / lost just recently, back there in 1990.  (Of course we close our eyes and pretend the actual US possession of Puerto Rico is Cuba, for there is no way the US is shooting in Cuba in 1995 -- or now, for that matter.)

And now ... Russia runs the US -- and quite possibly the Brits too -- through its obvious surrogates.

Also a lot of the intended as so smart riposte, crack wise lines are just, well, dumb, and even worse, cliche and predictable. 

Brosnan is awfully pretty.  Neither he nor his squeeze ever get dirty and neither do their clothes, no matter what happens to them.  A lot happens. Of course.

I do rather like the Daniel Craig Bond films, and am tepidly looking forward to seeing the forthcoming one -- the final Craig? -- sometime or other.

 

[red snow]

I watched Terminator: Dark Fate and it was ok but not great. It says a lot about the franchise that it might be the best one since T2 (although with time I'm appreciating that "Salvation" at least did something different). It makes me generally lament that the TV show was cancelled as they were doing interesting things with the timelines and characters.

Worst thing about the film was the SFX which were rubbish on a par with Matrix 2 CGI which at least had the excuse of being 15 years ago. None of the action looked real and it made most of the action ridiculous. I also wasn't happy about

them killing John Conner off in the opening few minutes - it just seemed to undermine earlier films

There was one thing that they did with the franchise that I absolutely loved

it was always Sarah Connor who undid the Terminators - John was only important because she raised/trained him and the same was entirely true of the new "saviour". I thought that was a great narrative choice as it makes the whole saga Sarah's in many ways. It also means the Terminators have always missed the point - they came closest in the first film when they tried to kill her to kill John. Given Sarah had the whole speech about just being a womb for the saviour made it more poignant in the sense she didn't grasp she really was the saviour. If that had been how the films had continued with Linda Hamilton on board and some better screenwriting and SFX I'd have been interested

. But again, it just makes me miss the TV show as that's sort of what they were doing too.

[Cas Stark]

l tried to watch Aquaman, how did this get decent reviews???  It was much worse than Suicide Squad.  I thought I remembered Amber Heard in something where she was 'fine' but she was terrible.  JM is as charismatic as ever but I didn't even make it 20 minutes.

 

[red snow]

1 hour ago, Cas Stark said:

l tried to watch Aquaman, how did this get decent reviews???  It was much worse than Suicide Squad.  I thought I remembered Amber Heard in something where she was 'fine' but she was terrible.  JM is as charismatic as ever but I didn't even make it 20 minutes.

 

I don't think it was as bad as Suicide Squad but it was far from turning a corner for the DC films. It was slightly better than Justice League which isn't say much. I guess the tone was more fun. Shazam and Wonder Woman are miles ahead in quality though.

[Cas Stark]

13 hours ago, red snow said:

I don't think it was as bad as Suicide Squad but it was far from turning a corner for the DC films. It was slightly better than Justice League which isn't say much. I guess the tone was more fun. Shazam and Wonder Woman are miles ahead in quality though.

I'm one of the few people who enjoyed Suicide Squad despite its stupid plot, the likability and 'star power' of both W. Smith and M. Robbie held my interest.  

[red snow]

1 minute ago, Cas Stark said:

I'm one of the few people who enjoyed Suicide Squad despite its stupid plot, the likability and 'star power' of both W. Smith and M. Robbie held my interest.  

Weirdly i thought smith, Robbie and boomerang guy were all good in terms of performance. It was just the crappy plot and feeling most of the film involved them walking along a dark street that upset me. But I'm in a weird minority in that i still think man of steel was good.

[Heartofice]

11 minutes ago, red snow said:

Weirdly i thought smith, Robbie and boomerang guy were all good in terms of performance. It was just the crappy plot and feeling most of the film involved them walking along a dark street that upset me. But I'm in a weird minority in that i still think man of steel was good.

I’m with you on Man of Steel which I think gets a lot of hate because it’s not the superman movie people wanted. But I think it’s a genuinely good movie with a lot to like about it.

Suicide Squad however is total garbage and individual performances barely helped it out when they were destroyed by disastrous editing.

[red snow]

1 hour ago, Heartofice said:

I’m with you on Man of Steel which I think gets a lot of hate because it’s not the superman movie people wanted. But I think it’s a genuinely good movie with a lot to like about it.

Suicide Squad however is total garbage and individual performances barely helped it out when they were destroyed by disastrous editing.

Always nice to hear from a man of steel admirer. The editing in SS was awful - that and the decision not to simply have the joker as the villain but a weird collection of villains I had no interest or connection with. The animated films do a much better job with the same premise.

[Heartofice]

26 minutes ago, red snow said:

Always nice to hear from a man of steel admirer. The editing in SS was awful - that and the decision not to simply have the joker as the villain but a weird collection of villains I had no interest or connection with. The animated films do a much better job with the same premise.

Yeah the animated Suicide Squad was far superior (not great, but certainly better). 

I think that DC seems be given a lot of good will because it's recent movies seem to be steps up from the low point of Justice League. That doesn't mean they are good though, even Shazam which I enjoyed was pretty forgettable and hard to say it was any better than average. 

[red snow]

59 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

Yeah the animated Suicide Squad was far superior (not great, but certainly better). 

I think that DC seems be given a lot of good will because it's recent movies seem to be steps up from the low point of Justice League. That doesn't mean they are good though, even Shazam which I enjoyed was pretty forgettable and hard to say it was any better than average. 

Shazam had a bit of an 80s vibe like goonies and young Sherlock Holmes which tickled my nostalgia itch.

[Zorral]

An Italian television series, Luna Nera, concerning a society of 17th Italian witches, dubbed into English, is now up on Netflix.  It does look interesting in the trailer.  OTOH, maybe it's just doubling down on the most extravagant of masquerade costumes and other preposterosity that permeated Reign, particularly historically*, all the more so as this is based on a YA book series. 

https://www.refinery29.com/en-us/2020/01/9309417/netflix-luna-nera-based-on-true-history-book

Quote

While this particular story is fictional, there are parts of the premise that are based on actual history. After all, witch hunting was a very real issue a mere 400 years ago when the show is set. In Luna Nera, the witch hunters are the benandanti, a group of people in northern Italy, who believed they had powers to fight off the witches, who did things like spoil their crops and land. The benandanti (which means "good walkers") believed their spirits left their bodies and that they were chosen by God to protect against witches, as explained by Ancient Origins. The belief was formed from a combination of Christianity and agrarian rituals, and existed around the time of the Roman Inquisition.

Guy Gavriel Kay used a work about these witch fighters, published at the time he was writing Tigana, in Tigana. It was one of the really interesting sections of Tigana -- of which there are several.

https://www.amazon.com/Night-Battles-Witchcraft-Sixteenth-Seventeenth/dp/1421409925

(I read the book when it came out here so I recognized how much Kay had taken from it for this set piece in Tigana.)

~~~~~~~~

* For ex, that Catherine de Medici hated Mary -- it was entirely the opposite -- at least from her childhood, through her marriage to Francis.  After Francis died, all things changed.

 

 

[Isis]

Went to see The Lighthouse last night. I would really recommend seeing it at the cinema because I don't think you'll get the same effect at home - from the contrast between the day and night scenes. I need to do some more digesting before saying anything more. 

Looking forward to going to see Parasite Monday night with a director Q&A afterwards. I splashed out for comfy seats too.

[red snow]

1 hour ago, Isis said:

Went to see The Lighthouse last night. I would really recommend seeing it at the cinema because I don't think you'll get the same effect at home - from the contrast between the day and night scenes. I need to do some more digesting before saying anything more. 

Looking forward to going to see Parasite Monday night with a director Q&A afterwards. I splashed out for comfy seats too.

It's definitely an interesting film. I didn't exactly like the experience but after 30 minutes I was transfixed and couldn't look away. Absolutely everything about the film is designed to create the atmosphere which is unusually impressive. And I now want to see Pattinson in some of the other indie roles he's been doing - i have "good" time queued up on Netflix.