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

[SpaceChampion]

11 hours ago, Goro said:

I need a good show out there, either from outside the United States or from the United States (so it can be Russian, Chinese, Iranian, what have you).

I just can't find a good show that isn't set in the modern world or is a drama or something. I need something much more adventurous, you know? Something like Game of Thrones (though not with the same bad quality that it had since season 3). I need something that's a different genre than most TV shows or streaming serials out there. Could be fantasy, scifi, horror, etc. but I just need something that isn't, say, a crime drama or cop serial.

There's a Korean series on Netflix, called Kingdom.  i haven't seen it yet but it is zombies overrunning medieval Korea.  I suspect it's the sort of thing you're looking for.

[Veltigar]

9 hours ago, RumHam said:

Lights Out is on HBOmax if you haven't seen it. I like that one. 

I remember seeing both the short and the full-length film. Agree with @Nictarion on this one I fear.

I have got Green Room ready next. I got it almost as soon as it came out but never saw it, so I hope that's good.

9 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

I actually have yet to see SPvW, but most people have positive things to say about it. Tucker and Dale vs Evil is just amazing though, but it is fairly different stylistically. 

I think I'm one of the few people who isn't fond of SPvW, but it has been hugely influential. You can really see it in The Baby Sitter. Stylistically speaking, it is a watered down version of the SPvW aesthetic. 

And I love Tucker and Dale vs. Evil. It is one of the few horror comedies that is actually good, rather than being awful in such a specific way that they become good again (e.g. Lesbian Vampire Killers, which is a must see if you haven't yet due to the title alone)

[Veltigar]

3 hours ago, SpaceChampion said:

There's a Korean series on Netflix, called Kingdom.  i haven't seen it yet but it is zombies overrunning medieval Korea.  I suspect it's the sort of thing you're looking for.

You have intrigued me as well  Do you happen to know whether the reviews are good?

[Heartofice]

Kingdom is pretty good. I recommend it. 

[Werthead]

14 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

Can't say I ever saw Merlin, but this may be about as bad as anything I've seen coming out of the gate. It's hard to even finish the first episode.

Btw, I haven't seen either Police Squad or Naked Gun. Which is better in your opinion? 

Merlin eventually gets pretty decent from very cheesy beginnings and surprisingly (given its Doctor Who-style family audience) engages with the darker aspects of the legend later on. It does have a great cast (Tom Hopper got his start there before Black Sails and GoT) and Tony Head is outstanding as Uther Pendragon. Very much not a Golden Age of Television-level show though.

Police Squad! is the OG idea and, only consisting of six 25-minute episodes, is short enough to be easily bingeable. Very funny, lots of sight gags and wordplay. The Naked Gun is good fun (although it does recycle a few gags from the TV show), although they did recast one of the TV actors with "a more bankable star" who turned out to be OJ Simpson, which obviously today is a bit weird. The second film is weaker but retains a few laughs, the third one is poor. The film trilogy's weakness is that they decided to make Leslie Nielsen relax, so he does gurn, laugh at a few of the jokes etc, whilst in Police Squad! he is 100% deadpan throughout the entire thing, no matter what lunacy is transpiring, which is much funnier.

Quote

Cornwell provided an original, historical take on the matter in his books, and they were both entertaining and plausible -- and BBC/netflix et al. managed to mostly pull that off all the way through, so far, with the Saxon Chronicles - The Last Kingdom.

They were starting to make some progress with The Warlord Chronicles - although apparently it is more likely to be called The Winter King - before the pandemic kicked in, so hopefully once TV production gets back in full swing, they can get it going again.

[Goro]

6 hours ago, SpaceChampion said:

There's a Korean series on Netflix, called Kingdom.  i haven't seen it yet but it is zombies overrunning medieval Korea.  I suspect it's the sort of thing you're looking for.

Thanks! I'll check it out.

[Veltigar]

I saw Outlander today. Not the Starz series, but the 2008 Jim Caviezel starring sci-fi horror rif on Beowulf. The story basically begins when an alien played by Jim Caviezel crash lands on earth ca. 709 and finds out that he has brought some unpleasant company with him. Mayhem ensues when the Vikings have to fight the hostile alien with Jim's Outlander being smack dab in the middle of things.

I had learned about the existence of this thing here and had it on my to watch list for a while. It's a little better than reviews would have you believe, but still not great. I'm a sucker for these kind of pictures though. It reminded me a bit of the Beowulf film with Christopher Lambert which is a B-movie great.

There are a shit ton of great actors in it. John Hurt, Ron Perlman (sadly and strangely underused though), Sophia Myles and so on beside Jim Caviezel himself of course. The effects are passable and the idea is just superbly interesting. I mean, who can say no to Jesus hunting aliens alongside a bunch of Viking warriors? That sounds incredibly bad ass!

Unfortunately the execution isn't there. It has a great (B-)movie hidden inside of it, but the parts just didn't click together very well. It's still enjoyable but unlike say Highlander it doesn't transcend its humble budget. The few most obvious flaws in my opinion

Spoiler

1. Not really doing much with the whole genocidal terraforming angle they took for the story. Caviezel does have his flashback, but I feel like they missed a chance to explore that further. Ultimately, I think it would also have been more interesting if the Morwen had just been a secondary villain and that Caviezel's colleagues would have shown up to terraform earth or something like it

2. How did the Morwen survive the burning of its planet, how did it manage to sneak aboard the ship (which doesn't offer much hiding space for a creature of the Morwen's size)

3. Why didn't they do more with Gunnar's character? You have Ron Perlman for Christ's sake!

4. It was weird that it took Caviezel so long to return to his ship. They knew very early on that normal swords were useless, so why didn't he retrieve space metal earlier

5. The whole love plot was quite bad. Especially as it turns in another damsel in distress moment in the end anyways. I also can't believe that Wulfric just gives the kingship to Caviezel while Sophia Miles' character is right there

6. Why did the Morwen randomly spare people? I feel like there is no good reason for that other than plot. The same for its entire hunting behavior really. Sometimes it comes out, sometimes it doesn't, but no reason for it.

7. I also don't get why everyone assumed it was a bear. These people should know what bears are capable of and murdering an entire village doesn't really gel with me.

There is more, but the list would get too long. I would love to see one of these high-concept films executed right for once.

 

7. No idea why Caviezel destroyed his beacon. It seems to me that that shouldn't be enough to deter a search party. These are people with the ability to terraform planets. They should be able to triangulate a distress sign

 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

1 hour ago, Werthead said:

Police Squad! is the OG idea and, only consisting of six 25-minute episodes, is short enough to be easily bingeable. Very funny, lots of sight gags and wordplay. The Naked Gun is good fun (although it does recycle a few gags from the TV show), although they did recast one of the TV actors with "a more bankable star" who turned out to be OJ Simpson, which obviously today is a bit weird. The second film is weaker but retains a few laughs, the third one is poor. The film trilogy's weakness is that they decided to make Leslie Nielsen relax, so he does gurn, laugh at a few of the jokes etc, whilst in Police Squad! he is 100% deadpan throughout the entire thing, no matter what lunacy is transpiring, which is much funnier.

Perhaps I mixed up Police Squad! with Police Academy. I really have no idea what Police Squad! is then, lol. 

[HoodedCrow]

Orphan Black(who is your favorite? ), Snowpiercer ( flawed, interesting), Better Call Saul( has a lot of good characters), Star Trek: Picard (as you would think), Star Trek Discovery ( very liberal!), The Umbrella Academy( like Marvel:) .

Old time movies in color, my favorite comedy, Cat Ballou, career inspiring The Miracle Worker, favorite musical, Oliver!, very topical, Cabaret or Anne of a Thousand Days, seriously good, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly.

There is a start:)

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

3 hours ago, Veltigar said:

And I love Tucker and Dale vs. Evil. It is one of the few horror comedies that is actually good, rather than being awful in such a specific way that they become good again (e.g. Lesbian Vampire Killers, which is a must see if you haven't yet due to the title alone)

Lol. I thought Tales From the Crypt's Demon Knight was a pretty good example of a bad but good horror-comedy. 

[Corvinus85]

3 hours ago, Veltigar said:

You have intrigued me as well  Do you happen to know whether the reviews are good?

Well I like it.  

But yes, it has received good reviews.

[Werthead]

55 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Perhaps I mixed up Police Squad! with Police Academy. I really have no idea what Police Squad! is then, lol. 

It's a TV show from the Zucker-Abrams-Zucker writing and directing team, most famous for Airplane. The Naked Gun trilogy of movies are a spin-off/remake of the TV show with Leslie Nielsen reprising his role as Detective Frank Drebin. They also made a string of other comedy movies including Top Secret, Ruthless People, Hot Shots and the third and fourth Scary Movie films.

[AncalagonTheBlack]

1 hour ago, Corvinus85 said:

Well I like it.  

But yes, it has received good reviews.

Me too! would recommend Kingdom for sure.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

24 minutes ago, Werthead said:

It's a TV show from the Zucker-Abrams-Zucker writing and directing team, most famous for Airplane. The Naked Gun trilogy of movies are a spin-off/remake of the TV show with Leslie Nielsen reprising his role as Detective Frank Drebin. They also made a string of other comedy movies including Top Secret, Ruthless People, Hot Shots and the third and fourth Scary Movie films.

Interesting to know. Also, if you respect them, I'd omit that part about the Scary Movie sequels. The original is a classic, but the follow ups are bad at best. 

[Nictarion]

5 hours ago, Veltigar said:

I have got Green Room ready next. I got it almost as soon as it came out but never saw it, so I hope that's good.

If you like this I recommend Blue Ruin if you haven’t seen it. It’s by the same director (Jeremy Saulnier). 

[GallowKnight]

5 hours ago, Veltigar said:

I have got Green Room ready next. I got it almost as soon as it came out but never saw it, so I hope that's good.

Green Room is so good, probably my favourite movie of the last five or so years.

5 hours ago, Veltigar said:

You have intrigued me as well  Do you happen to know whether the reviews are good?

Kingdom is dope as fuck.

[Isis]

This morning I watched Lady Bird and initially I was going to turn it off as it was more annoying than anything else. But eventually it seemed like it had something to say and on balance, if I had gone to see this at the pictures I would have probably come out thinking that it was quite good.

This afternoon I was in the mood for a bit of a wallow but couldn't find either Blue Valentine or The English Patient which some of my top misery films...so I ended up watching Take This Waltz instead. This has not aged well. When I saw it at the cinema in 2011 it had a truly profound effect on me because of where I was in my life at the time. It made me feel such intense sadness about my first marriage (which had ended the previous year) that I basically started crying and couldn't stop. I remember that my boyfriend (at the time; who then became my husband) and I felt so bleak that we hardly spoke on the way home (he said he would NEVER see another Michelle Williams film) and went straight to bed when we got home.

Anyway Seth Rogan (based on his performance in this film) cannot act and the character he plays ANNOYS ME SO MUCH IT HURTS. But that's bittersweet though, as Michelle Williams' character is a fuck up as well. So it's kind of miserable all round. But it definitely holds some truths still. Although I must say that some of the writing is a bit obvious. The story remains a good idea, but I think that had it been written a bit better it would stand up to scrutiny ten years on.

[Veltigar]

2 hours ago, Corvinus85 said:

Well I like it.  

But yes, it has received good reviews.

 

5 hours ago, Heartofice said:

Kingdom is pretty good. I recommend it. 

1 hour ago, AncalagonTheBlack said:

Me too! would recommend Kingdom for sure.

Well, after all this praise, I'll definitely check it out

59 minutes ago, Nictarion said:

If you like this I recommend Blue Ruin if you haven’t seen it. It’s by the same director (Jeremy Saulnier). 

Yeah, saw that a few years ago in the year that it came out (2014?) bought Green Room afterwards because I liked that one so much. For some reason never got around to it.

29 minutes ago, GallowKnight said:

Green Room is so good, probably my favourite movie of the last five or so years.

Kingdom is dope as fuck.

Damn, that's high praise

And another Kingdom lover! Strange that I can't remember hearing anything about it before. Flew right past me.

[williamjm]

I rewatched Hell or High Water and liked it as much as I did the first time. The cast is good overall but Ben Foster in particular steals every scene he's in.

[Ramsay B.]

I watched the 5-part docuseries Outcry on Showtime. A football star is accused of molesting 2 kids in Texas. It never ceases to amaze me how incompetent some cops and lawyers can be at their jobs, and not give a fuck. 

Spoiler

How that jury convicted Kelley is absurd too. I don’t think people quite understand what “beyond a reasonable doubt” means.