Watch, Watched, Watching: A new thread was Justified

[Iskaral Pust]

31 minutes ago, Vaughn said:

Standard disclaimer - to each their own, of course, but you don't find any of the Pixar content worth rewatching? The Toy Stories are wildly overrated and the Cars series is the Devil's work, but Ratatouille, Up, the Incredibles and Wall-E are all very re-watchable for me. Granted I do have kids but I've watched these by myself when they were on TV.  

I agree with that assessment but I have already seen Ratatouille, Up, Incredibles and Wall-E three times, or more.  So not worth rewatching again at this point.

[Ran]

Laputa: Castle in the Sky: Finished this. It's definitely lesser Miyazaki, with a fairly bland story with little depth. Gorgeous visuals, though.

Interrupted my going through the Miyazaki oeuvre on Netflix to watch..

Altered Carbon: Resleeved: My first taste of fully 3D animated anime (this is genuinely anime, Japanese studio, Japanese writer and director), and.. I don't know, I prefer 2D. The story was meh, voice acting was meh, visuals were cool (particularly a very cyberpunk city) with some really amazing action beats. It got better, story-wise, in the last 15-20 minutes. I doubt they'll be doing more of these, but they certainly could.

Then back to Miyazaki. I first glimpsed My Neighbor Totoro about 23 years ago, because my younger cousin (I was living with my uncle's family my first year of university) absolutely loved anime and was constantly watching things like Miyazaki's films, Dragonball, etc. while learning Japanese from a "Japanese for beginners" book. I had no time for that kid stuff (no, I was too busy watching Kurosawa and Kitano films rented from Blockbuster...).

But in all honesty, it's one of the most charming films I've ever seen, animated or otherwise. The joys of childhood, the simple pleasures of domesticity, the glimpse of life in rural Japan, mixed with gentle bits of wonder and fantasy -- completely, potently beguiling. What a mind Miyazaki must have.

 

[ljkeane]

I watched the last season of Hap and Leonard over the weekend. That's a pretty brutal note to end the series on with it being cancelled. Still, it's a really good show for anyone who hasn't seen it.

[williamjm]

I watched The Dish on Amazon Prime, a film I've vaguely been intending to watch for years but never got around to. I thought it was a very likeable film, the stakes (transmitting the Apollo 11 moonwalk broadcast) are enough to be interesting without them being all that high. It's a fairly gentle comedy but fun to watch.

[Mexal]

11 hours ago, Nictarion said:

Watched Fighting with My Family. Really surprised how much I liked it. Even with my love of Florence Pugh. I couldn’t care less about wrestling, and never have, but it’s actually a pretty good movie. 

I really liked it too. I had no expectations going in and it tickled me in all the right places. These types of movies are tailor made for me though.

[AncalagonTheBlack]

1 hour ago, Triskele said:

Anyone know much about The English Game on Netflix?  Only just saw the preview, and that alone gave me the impression that it's a fairly big Netflix effort which feels at odds with the lack of hype (at least that I've noticed).

Wanted to watch since but gave it a miss after this review

The English Game review – Julian Fellowes football drama is an own goal

1 / 5 stars

 

The Downton Abbey creator looks to the origins of the beautiful game, and ‘t’m’ill workers’ and ‘t’toffs’ who battled it out in the 1879 FA Cup, in this dire Netflix series - https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2020/mar/20/the-english-game-review-julian-fellowes-football-drama-is-an-own-goal

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An under-reported element of the government’s current health policy is that they want us to acquire herd immunity not to coronavirus but to Julian Fellowes. This is the most likely explanation I can think of for exposing us to a second series created and written – to stretch the meaning of the word to the very furthest reaches of and possibly slightly beyond its natural elastic limits – by him mere days after his last one, Belgravia, was allowed on to our screens. Let’s all look out for each other, check on the neighbours and try to stay safe.

The latest infection site is The English Game (Netflix). It is about football. It is about the inflection point in the game when it went from being one codified and played by poshos to one that was dominated by and united the common man. It is Downton Abbey for boys. It is terrible.

It is mostly terrible because Fellowes has discovered The North. We’ll get to that. I just wanted to prepare you.

 

[HexMachina]

17 hours ago, Iskaral Pust said:

 

I was pretty sure even before we signed up that the Mandalorian was the only thing we’d want to see.  The subscription is only month-by-month, so nothing lost in a short subscription. My parents in Ireland had to get a minimum one year subscription.  That’s madness.  

Disney+ does have all the Avengers and Pixar content too, but none of that is worth rewatching. 

Hmm, thats odd. There was no monthly option at all for them? There was a cheaper yearly deal in The UK (£49.99 i think) but still the option for monthly subs. That year tie in would put me off for the same reasons as you - i only really want Clone Wars and the Mandalorian

[Veltigar]

I was finally able to see Moonlight. It came out in a pretty weird year for me, so I have yet to see many of the big contenders of that year, but if this is the best picture winner of that year, color me not impressed.

It's certainly better than La La Land (the only other major contender of that year I did see), but it's not really anything I would deem worthy of best picture status. I know, the subject matter is really relevant and historically speaking it is a big deal for an all-black, LGBT film to win Best Picture (and have the first Muslim actor win a prize as well), but I guess I expected something more. Not that I want to be overly negative, I was engaged throughout and I would certainly call it a good film but it was not the era-defining classic I hoped it was going to. 

Like, everything was good and they did some great stuff with a really small budget but I don't think anything will stick with me really. Maybe the opening tune and a bit of Mahershala Ali's character, but all the rest was pretty bland. I can't really believe they gave Ali his award for this. I can't compare it to much of the competition, but if he really was the best in that year, that really was a bad year for film. Some of the transitions were really cool as well and the second part had good narrative focus. But I'm really scraping the barrel here in finding anything particularly praise-worthy about it.

[Ramsay B.]

I thought Moonlight was great and really like Mahershala Ali, but I thought it was weird he won an Oscar at the time too. Wasn’t he only in it for like 10 minutes? I haven’t seen it in a while.

Since I have nothing but time now I started to watch The Leftovers. I saw the first few episodes when it came out but sort of just stopped. The praise on this board has forced my hand.

On 3/21/2020 at 11:44 PM, Mexal said:

We are. Loving it so far. Atmosphere is by far the best part.

I’m enjoying Devs too. I’m a total sucker for Garland’s style and I’ll watch anything he does now.

[red snow]

"the platform" on Netflix is an uncannily well-timed SF thriller in the vein of "the cube" and "saw". Simple set-up but with lots of scope. The acting is great and essential for such a small cast with really interesting characters and the central message is really interesting - especially given how coranavirus is playing out in society with panic-buying and selfishness of a few messing things up for everyone else.

Still a great thriller despite being viewed through covid-19 lenses and I'll be very interested to see what the director does next

[red snow]

8 hours ago, Veltigar said:

.

It's certainly better than La La Land (the only other major contender of that year I did see), but it's not really anything I would deem worthy of best picture status. I know, the subject matter is really relevant and historically speaking it is a big deal for an all-black, LGBT film to win Best Picture (and have the first Muslim actor win a prize as well), but I guess I expected something more. Not that I want to be overly negative, I was engaged throughout and I would certainly call it a good film but it was not the era-defining classic I hoped it was going to. 

Like, everything was good and they did some great stuff with a really small budget but I don't think anything will stick with me really. Maybe the opening tune and a bit of Mahershala Ali's character, but all the rest was pretty bland. I can't really believe they gave Ali his award for this. .

Isn't this true of pretty much every oscar winner?

At the very least this was an original screenplay and not an adaptation of a musical.

I thought Ali won supporting actor? Totally deserving of that as his limited scenes were excellent. If he won best actor, i agree that's off.

[Heartofice]

Moonlight, like a lot of other Oscar winners is a completely forgettable movie. It obviously won heavily based on its subject matter because otherwise it’s not an especially great movie at all. Some good acting, a couple of nice looking scenes but I can remember almost nothing else about it.

Its a waste of time debating film quality when it comes to the Oscars though, the idea that best pictures are decided based on whether they are the best movie is completely naive. We’ve all given up on that idea. 

[Ran]

There's moments and images from Moonlight that stick in my head still, so the idea that it's "completely forgettable" is obviously an individual assessment. Barry Jenkins is a great director, and James Laxton did a bang-up job on the cinematography.

I would have put Manchester by the Sea or La La Land above it for the Oscar, personally, but it was surely better than everything else on that year's expanded list, IMO.

[Heartofice]

15 minutes ago, Ran said:

 

I would have put Manchester by the Sea or La La Land above it for the Oscar, personally, but it was surely better than everything else on that year's expanded list, IMO.

It was actually an especially strong year for best picture. There was La La Land, Arrival, Manchester by the Sea, Hell or high water and Lion that year and I thought they were all better movies than Moonlight.

I wanted La La Land to win personally because as someone who hates musicals in general it was a movie that almost turned me

[Ran]

14 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

Arrival

Wildly over-rated! Also, would not have made the list in prior years as an SF film.

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Hell or high water

Great genre film, but just a genre film. Would not have made the list before they expanded.

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and Lion that year

Talking about Oscar bait...

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and I thought they were all better movies than Moonlight.

De gustibus, etc.

[Heartofice]

Ugh, Arrival is bloody great, no way is it over rated.

 La la Land is a musical genre movie and Lion is simply better more affecting Oscar bait. 

But again, pointless disagreeing as Oscars are not about film quality.

[Ran]

1 minute ago, Heartofice said:

La la Land is a musical genre movie

True, but the musical film is also different in form compared to non-musicals. Genre films like Hell or High Water, not so much, it's just about narrative that differentiaties it. La La Land was popular because of Chazelle handling the challenges imposed by the form more so than it being a brilliant example of the genre, IMO.

[Mark Antony]

25 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

Ugh, Arrival is bloody great, no way is it over rated

Amy Adams not being nominated for best actress still might be the Oscar snub that makes me the maddest

2 hours ago, red snow said:

"the platform" on Netflix is an uncannily well-timed SF thriller in the vein of "the cube" and "saw". 

I legit thought this was one of the worst movies I’ve seen. Also the fucking grossest.

[red snow]

53 minutes ago, Mark Antony said:

Amy Adams not being nominated for best actress still might be the Oscar snub that makes me the maddest

I legit thought this was one of the worst movies I’ve seen. Also the fucking grossest.

It's definitely gross and I can see how that's off-putting.

[dbunting]

Finished Marvelous Mrs Maisel at the end of last week. Good show, thought S1 was the best of the three. The way the kids were treated is amazing, they are truly just props in this show. By the end I wanted to punch her parents in the face whenever they were on screen.

Also watched S1 of The Americans, since I couldn't go out and do much!  Really good show so far. I was a bit shocked at the amount of bare asses and swearing that is allowed. I guess since it was originally on FX it's allowed a little more lee way?