Watch, Watched, Watching: What Old Is New When There Is No New

[RedEyedGhost]

9 hours ago, AncalagonTheBlack said:

About to start Netflix's new fantasy series - CURSED , despite the reviews , i'm bored and it's fantasy so...

I'll be watching this tomorrow night and Sunday.  Looks delightfully bad.

[Darth Richard II]

5 hours ago, Zorral said:

Re Cursed, which arrives tomorrow on netflix: Frank Miller and Teenage Female Sorcereress -- or Fairy? They aren't the same but it seems they are being treated as being the same thing in Cursed -- well, to say it again, Frank Miller and Teenage Female Protag -- what possibly could go ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww-wrong here?

 

Ewwwww Frank Miller. I think the world has ended, we agree on something.

[briantw]

On 7/15/2020 at 2:38 PM, RumHam said:

You know I've only caught a few headlines, but yeah thankfully I find it very easy to separate the art from the artist. I watched L.A. Confidential the other day for the first time in years and I was more distracted by "wait that's Frank Reynolds" than "oh ew that's kevin spacey."

DeVito is so iconic as Frank Reynolds that it's easy to forget how great and versatile he is in everything else.

[Corvinus85]

I watched the first episode of Cursed. Ugh, I've watched Letter to the King and Warrior Nun. I don't think I can stomach another Netflix fantasy mediocre show. But one scene made me both cringe and chuckle.

Spoiler

 

Nimue's mom: You are the new Summoner.

Nimue: I don't want it!

Me: (GoT season 8 flashbacks triggered) NOOOO! Why did you have to say that? 

 

 

[DMC]

2 hours ago, briantw said:

DeVito is so iconic as Frank Reynolds that it's easy to forget how great and versatile he is in everything else.

My favorite role of his is The Big Kahuna, which is much different than almost all of his other roles.  And certainly Frank.  Who is awesome.

[RumHam]

2 hours ago, briantw said:

DeVito is so iconic as Frank Reynolds that it's easy to forget how great and versatile he is in everything else.

Yeah. Also I dunno that I've seen him in any thing else in the last decade or so? I see he was in Jumanji II (3? was the previous one a reboot or a mostly unrelated sequel?) and that's enough reason for me to watch that. The first new Jumanji was fun. 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

Well given all the love for The Talented Mr. Ripley, I figured I'd give it a go. 

Excellent movie, for what it is. 

Also, Cate Blanchett is officially a vampire. 

[Ran]

15 hours ago, Argonath Diver said:

I also found the worst-aged part of The Talented Mr. Ripley was that I felt they (willfully or not) attached his sexuality as a negative trait to his actual sociopathy.

Interestingly, LGBTQ advocacy groups and media back in 1999, when the film was released, were almost entirely supportive of the film and what was considered a sensitive take on the gay experience, depicting that loathing and panic over homosexuality, as well as the longing. The Advocate had Matt Damon on its cover and raved about the film.

It's not like advocates were shy to protest negative depictions back then: they picketed Cruising in the 80s, and GLAAD basically became a national name thanks to its leading the charge against Silence of the Lambs and Basic Instinct in the early 90s. 

 

Quote

"And he's gay,  too!" was what I took out of his ogling of Jude Law. He did appear to have a healthy relationship with the Brit, but by that point we can't trust that the character is a psychotic who happens to be queer, vs a sociopath projecting false empathy. I think it's genuinely difficult for filmmakers to portray a negatively viewed character (bad guy, mean sister, etc) as also LGBT without attaching that sexuality to their character flaws. 

I think Minghella's expansion of this aspect of Ripley by giving him the relationship to Peter, and the reduction of some of the casually bigoted language in Highsmith's novel (not from the characters, necessarily, but the prose was fairly explicit) was helpful. For me, the film reads in this aspect as being about the pathology of repression rather than as if homosexuality was somehow pathological.

[AncalagonTheBlack]

10 hours ago, RedEyedGhost said:

I'll be watching this tomorrow night and Sunday.  Looks delightfully bad.

 

Thanks for giving me company! On episode 6 now.Onwards (till the cursed end!)

6 hours ago, Corvinus85 said:

I watched the first episode of Cursed. Ugh, I've watched Letter to the King and Warrior Nun. I don't think I can stomach another Netflix fantasy mediocre show. But one scene made me both cringe and chuckle.

  Hide contents

 

Nimue's mom: You are the new Summoner.

Nimue: I don't want it!

Me: (GoT season 8 flashbacks triggered) NOOOO! Why did you have to say that? 

 

 

Oh the show writers have definitely taken GoT cliff notes!

[Nictarion]

Rewatching In Bruges. Love this movie so much. 

[AncalagonTheBlack]

8 hours ago, Corvinus85 said:

I watched the first episode of Cursed. Ugh, I've watched Letter to the King and Warrior Nun. I don't think I can stomach another Netflix fantasy mediocre show. But one scene made me both cringe and chuckle.

  Hide contents

 

Nimue's mom: You are the new Summoner.

Nimue: I don't want it!

Me: (GoT season 8 flashbacks triggered) NOOOO! Why did you have to say that? 

 

 

More GoT triggers in episode 6...The Blackfish shows up!

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

It's 7am, I've got a bong packed, I took a shot, cracked open a beer and I'm watching an all time classic, Old School. 

[Isis]

On 7/17/2020 at 5:19 PM, Derfel Cadarn said:

Wife’s nightshift week after next might be a good time to rewatch (for the xth time) Taboo with Ton Hardy. One of my favourite shows to watch with lights off, candles lit, and some red wine.

Crikey. We could barely get through it the first time round. Definitely a case of style over substance. 

Started on the second season of Deadwind  but it's hardly gripping so far. 

Finished watching Unsolved Mysteries, the first three were very strong but the UFO one seemed out of place. They're gripping, but also make you feel sad, soiled and angry afterwards. 

[AncalagonTheBlack]

On 7/17/2020 at 9:49 PM, Derfel Cadarn said:

Wife’s nightshift week after next, might be a good time to rewatch (for the xth time) Taboo with Ton Hardy. One of my favourite shows to watch with lights off, candles lit, and some red wine.

First the delays to season 2 because of his film schedules, then Covid ,we're not getting another season , are we? And just when the show-world was expanding and heading across the pond, was really excited to see what they would do with the storyline.

[Zorral]

The thing was Lady of the Lake, who raised Lancelot and gave Arthur Excalibur and took it back again, though a pivotal figure, she isn't a protagonist. She's ageless, from another time or realm.  Classically, (so to speak!) she and Nimue are not the same people.  So making her a teenage fairy feels more stupid than making anyone a fairy (I mean the showrunners even call Nimue a fairy, not even 'fae', which might be acceptable, since T.H. White did  -- generally anyway, not always), maybe even more stupid than the fairies who come to Louisiana in True Blood, which you know, is really hard to pull off!  

But these days I read or hear 'fairy' and immediately all I can see is little girls in their wings and tutus brandishing wands and wearing crocs.

 

 

[AncalagonTheBlack]

Finished my binge of Cursed! I'm a glutton for punishment so will watch the next bonkers season as the show ended on a cliffhanger!

 

For my next binge i'm going with The Head, a new Arctic thriller/mystery that i hope won't go off the deep end like Fortitude did in it's later seasons.

Quote

The series, consisting of six one-hour episodes, follows events at an international research station in Antarctica after the long dark winter months, when the commander returns to find most of the crew of scientists murdered.

The Head, produced in association with Hulu Japan and THE MEDIAPRO STUDIO. The series will premiere on June 12 at 9pm on HBO GO and HBO.It will debut in 30 markets on June 12 and will be available in 15 languages. HBO Asia will release in Japan and Southeast Asia, Nordic Entertainment Group (NENT Group) will release in Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland and Iceland, and OrangeTV will release in Spain.

The Head is a survival thriller set in the Polaris VI international polar station in Antarctica during its long, dark Antarctic months, engulfed by the cold, the wind and the vast expanses of ice. A select group of scientists from different countries are in charge of maintaining the base operational during the long polar nights. But in the midst of winter, the station suddenly stops communicating with the outside world. With dialogues in English and Danish, the suspenseful storyline develops over six hour-long episodes and is directed by Jorge Dorado (“The Pier”, “Mindscape”).

The Head’s international cast include Álvaro Morte (Money Heist), Tomohisa Yamashita (“Code Blue”), John Lynch (“The Terror”), Katherine O’Donnelly (“Mary Queen of Scots”), Alexandre Willaume (“Below the Surface”, “Tomb Raider”), Laura Bach (“Sprinter Galore”), Sandra Andreis (“The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo”), Amelia Hoy (“Killing Eve”) , Chris Reilly (“Allied”, “Everest”), Richard Sammel (“Inglorious Bastards”) and Tom Lawrence (“The King”, “The Crown”), in addition to the special collaboration.

The series was shot in a two-thousand-square-meter studio in Tenerife, Spain, where the purpose-built set of the Polaris VI research station where most of the action takes place was erected, reproduced to actual scale, based on information about the layout and operation of this type of scientific facility, which enabled the show-runners to film long shots of the characters wandering around inside the station with complete authenticity

 

[williamjm]

I rewatched Parasite, the first time I've seen it since it was out at the cinema. It's still a great film, rewatching it does reveal a few extra bits of foreshadowing that are much more noticeable watching it a second time.

[Veltigar]

Remember how I was raving about Jordan Peele and the horror revival of the last couple of years a few days ago after finally seeing Get Out? I'm definitely over that thanks to Jordan Peele's Us. What a fucking shitty movie that was. I'd never have watched another flick of his if this was the first I saw. 

The only thing this has in common with Get Out is that it looks very nice. Everything else about it is just trash. It was arguably one of the most boring horror films I have had the displeasure of sitting through. The script was poor, the narrative really did not work, the threat wasn't scary. It was just nonsense really and the rules in universe were so haphazardly applied that it just killed any form of tension. Acting was bad, but mainly because the actors were really asked to do such ridiculous things.

If you haven't seen it, then don't. Watch Get Out instead. Rewatch if you have too, that's a modern classic while I hope that this movie will be buried and forgotten as quickly as possible.

[Nictarion]

1 hour ago, Veltigar said:

Remember how I was raving about Jordan Peele and the horror revival of the last couple of years a few days ago after finally seeing Get Out? I'm definitely over that thanks to Jordan Peele's Us. What a fucking shitty movie that was. I'd never have watched another flick of his if this was the first I saw. 

The only thing this has in common with Get Out is that it looks very nice. Everything else about it is just trash. It was arguably one of the most boring horror films I have had the displeasure of sitting through. The script was poor, the narrative really did not work, the threat wasn't scary. It was just nonsense really and the rules in universe were so haphazardly applied that it just killed any form of tension. Acting was bad, but mainly because the actors were really asked to do such ridiculous things.

If you haven't seen it, then don't. Watch Get Out instead. Rewatch if you have too, that's a modern classic while I hope that this movie will be buried and forgotten as quickly as possible.

Couldn’t disagree more. I loved Us. Also, bad acting?? I can’t even wrap my head around that statement. Lupita Nyong'o was fantastic. 

[RumHam]

I thought Us was very disappointing after Get Out. It was creepy and well acted but the moment alt-Lupita explained everything my interest just evaporated.