Watch, Watched, Watching: I missed the last thread?

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

Anaconda is a great bad film!

[hauberk]

On 9/8/2020 at 4:17 PM, dbunting said:

Right, and the ones most wrong are 

  Reveal hidden contents

Also the same ones who are with the secret Cobra Kai training in the very end

 

For the most part.  

Spoiler

I see Eli/Hawk as very much being Krees' new Johnny, with even more baggage than we saw from the young Johnny flashback.

 

[RumHam]

7 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

Anaconda is a great bad film!

And the sequel where they're looking for the magic flower is just as watchable, a rarity in horror. 

[Aemon Stark]

20 hours ago, RumHam said:

The funny thing is the director's cut just makes things worse, and you almost get the impression the filming difficulties made the movie. Especially when it comes to Kurtz. 

The director's cut is about 100% more languid and slow, with all sorts of weird diversions that are really pointless. But I may be misremembering whether stuff like the sequence with the French plantation people is from the theatrical or director's cut. Either way, it brought the story to a standstill. 

13 hours ago, Veltigar said:

Forgot to mention that I watched Seth Rogen's An American Pickle yesterday. Bad decision, but in my defense I was heavily sleep deprived and in need for something lowbrow. That being said, rather unpleasantly surprised by how lazy this was. I might have chuckled once or so.

I believe this one will go down in history as Seth Rogen's having his own Adam Sandler moment. He made a few amusing flicks over the years and now he has just decided to lay back, relax and phone it in. Minimal effort, but he'll still make money. That's at least how this felt like. 

Hmm. Sounds lame. Weirdly enough, I actually went to preschool with him in Vancouver. 

 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

3 hours ago, RumHam said:

And the sequel where they're looking for the magic flower is just as watchable, a rarity in horror. 

Lol, I feel like I've seen it, in the sense that I might have put it on at 1am after getting home from the bar, watched 10-15 minutes of it, passed out and then forgot I even rented it when I woke up the next day. Or maybe not. 

ETA: Holy shit, there are five of these films, and eventually it turns into a crossover franchise with the numerous Lake Placid films. 

[Rippounet]

Watched the first episodes of both Another life and Raised by Wolves. I found the first episode of Another life predictable, but with a fast enough pace that I'm still curious about what comes next. I'm kinda afraid Katee Sackhoff ends up carrying the show on her shoulders though.
By contrast, the first episode of Raised by wolves was gripping, very original and surprising. It's a mix of many things and yet I can't seem to remember quite anything like it. I hope it remains this good for the entire season.

[RedEyedGhost]

I spent most of the last two weeks rewatching all five seasons of iZombie.  Glad it ended when it did, but I still miss this show.  Loved the witty dialogue.  

Speaking of dialogue, I'm watching Iron Fist while working out.  Halfway through the first season, and the dialogue is even worse than I remember.  Don't really care about much in this show.  Ward is so incredibly cliche.  Next up will be The Defenders.  After that probably JJ season 2, LC 2, P 1, IF 2, DD 3, JJ 3, and then P 2.  Trying to keep it a little bit in order, but also want to save some of the better stuff for the end, but the entire arch has already peaked with DD 2.  I think that should be enough to get me through to the end of the year.

 

17 hours ago, Veltigar said:

Haven't seen either of those, so I'll take your word for it! Seth Rogen is now very close to Sandler's Grown Ups phase of movies. Although perhaps he's already in it as Rogen playing himself and his pickled ancestor is awfully reminiscent of Sandler playing Jack and Jill.

You haven't seen Uncut Gems??  

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

On 8/25/2020 at 6:06 PM, Tywin et al. said:

Jumping from building to building in fast cars wasn't enough for you?

I'm just waiting to see how they'll get us to cars.....in space!!!!!

It's happening!

https://collider.com/fast-and-furious-9-space-details/

 

[Nictarion]

I started probably about my 37th rewatch of The Sopranos. I’ve been listening to the Talking Sopranos podcast (actually watching on YouTube). I was on the fence about the podcast at first since I don’t really listen to many of them, but it’s absolutely worth it if you were a big fan of the show. Lots of good guests, and Michael Imperioli is an absolute wealth of knowledge when it comes to films, music, theatre, etc. 

[Zorral]

12 hours ago, Rippounet said:

By contrast, the first episode of Raised by wolves was gripping, very original and surprising. It's a mix of many things and yet I can't seem to remember quite anything like it. I hope it remains this good for the entire season.

Whereas Raised By Wolves just bores me ded.

[Ran]

I've watched this and that since the last time I've posted here. Prompted to write about the most recent thing I watched, today in fact, but will do a quick rundown of some of the stuff:

Finished Curb Your Enthusiasm after stalling for awhile mid-7th season (which was silly, in retrospect, because that was just as the big Seinfeld reunion was going to kick off, particularly "The Table Read" episode with Michael Richards having ... issues with Leon after Larry gets Leon to pretend he's someone else). The 8th season was pretty good, the 9th season with Fatwa! The Musical was even better, and  this latest season's running gag about the "spite coffee shop" over Larry's feud with Mocha Joe was great, especially as other celebrities picked up the idea and started their own spite stores. Jon Hamm was especially good playing himself shadowing Larry to learn his mannerisms for a role, and doing it all too well.

Watched the first three episode of Lovecraft Country, enjoyed it so far, but it seems less ambitious than I expected.

Also watched a few episodes of Brave New World, and enjoyed it so far, although it's slighter than the source material (much less philosophical, so far). Harry Lloyd and Jessica Brown Findlay are good in it.

Got back on the Miyazaki/Ghibli watch. Saw The Wind Rises, which is an interesting mash-up of a Japanese novel and a biography of the designer of the Zero fighter plane. The idea of flying, and the image of wind blowing through experiences, are really strong with Miyazaki. I don't think this is a top film of his, it was a bit episodic, but there were some powerful moments and gorgeous images. Then saw Ponyo, which I thought would be too kiddie, but... nope, it was a wonderfully imaginative, very loose retelling/homage of H.C. Andersen's "The Little Mermaid". And then the Ghibli film Arietty, based on The Borrowers series of children's books (which I've never read), and that was also lovely. The animation is so good. (Interestingly, just read that Don Bluth is starting up a company to try and revive traditional handdrawn animation in the U.S. I wish him well!)

Watched Won't You Be My Neighbor?, the Mr. Rogers documentary, and got teary eyed here and there. He was a living saint. The moment that François Clemmons (who played Officer Clemmons) recounted the moment when he realized that Rogers -- a conservative, white, straight ordained minister -- loved him and care about him -- a liberal, black homosexual -- and that he loved Rogers in return was especially touching.

Watched Scorsese's Rolling Thunder Revue documentary about Bob Dylan, which has a fictional aspect to it when it's presented as using restored footage by a European director who was following the tour around, and features interviews with the director... but said director is actually an actor, presenting a fictionalized take on the events, and at no point does the documentary acknowledge this (ditto with an appearance of former congressman Jack Tanner, from the Tanner '88 mockumentary created by Garry Trudeau and directed by Robert Altman). So... yeah, some meta stuff. It captures the weirdness of that particular slice of the era pretty well.

Watched Charlie Kaufmann's I'm Thinking of Ending Things. A very Kaufmann experience, to say the least. I figured out what was going on, to a degree, part way through, and thought it was a pretty bold approach at telling the kind of story it told. Jessie Buckley was fantastic, particularly

Spoiler

her spot on impersonation of Pauline Kael.

Watched the first three episodes of Chef's Table: BBQ, made me hungry for meat, and more meat! First episode especially good, as the 83-year-old Tootsie Tomanetz who's the pitmaster at the famous Snow's BBQ in Texas is quite the character, and has gone through a lot of tragedy in her life but has weathered it and carried on. 

And the film I watched today for the first time, the 1947 British psychodrama Black Narcissus, directed by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, based on the novel of the same name. The Technicolor imagery is sometimes amazingly lush and gorgeous, and the performances -- melodramatic though they are, stylized though they are -- really convey the passions and turmoils of the characters. Yes, it suffers the sins of Western colonial superiority and Orientalism, undoubtedly, treating the exotic locale (an Indian territory in the Himalayas, although in fact all shot in the UK, including on the grounds of an estate belonging to a former Indian officer who had planted Indian trees and flowers) as something that causes temptation and a loss of discipline.... but man, the performances. Deborah Kerr is good, David Farrar as well, but the standout is Kathleen Byron, who dominates the final quarter of the film. (In brief, the story is that a group of Anglican nuns take up residence in a remote, abandoned palace given to them by the local warlord, whose liason to them is a British adventurer who incites confused feelings in some of the nuns, with a subplot regarding the warlord's son and a flirtatious, troublesome peasant girl. It's greater than it might sound, and well-recommended.) 

Powell and Pressburger followed up with the gorgeous, glorious The Red Shoes (bringing us back, somehow, to H.C. Andersen...). They had a technical mastery of framing and lighting that was top-flight for the era. Scorsese cites Black Narcissus as an inspiration for the very tight close-ups he's used in some of his films.

[BigFatCoward]

8 hours ago, Ran said:

 

Watched the first three episodes of Chef's Table: BBQ, made me hungry for meat, and more meat! First episode especially good, as the 83-year-old Tootsie Tomanetz who's the pitmaster at the famous Snow's BBQ in Texas is quite the character, and has gone through a lot of tragedy in her life but has weathered it and carried on. 

 

Annoying that they showed it just as BBQ season in the UK is coming to an end. 

I dont care how good BBQ is, I'm not getting up and queueing on a saturday morning. Though I guess Texans feel pretty strongly about BBQ. 

I really want to try the 203 day aged steak from episode 2.

[Corvinus85]

Away is a SF show, starring Hillary Swank, that dropped on Netflix last weekend with little fanfare. I don't recall seeing even a trailer for it, just some headline last year that this was coming. 

It's a story about the first journey to Mars, but with a focus on what this vast and dangerous distance means from an emotional perspective for both the astronauts and their loved ones. The entire first season covers the crew's 7 month long journey to Mars. It had a slow start, but a strong finish, good enough to make me want to see a second season. While the story mainly focused on Swank's character and her family, the other astronauts got their due.

The cast is also diverse, as the part of the premise is that this is an international effort. I doubt, though, that it will be well received in China, if even available there, as it is critical of some of its ideologies and behavior.

[Ran]

Also watched Netflix's Cuties, directed by French-Senagalese director Maïmouna Doucouré, due to all the controversy when Netflix put out some misrepresentative marketing material. It's actually a very good film about young girls coming of age in this modern world of TikTok and Instagram, influencers and twerking, and the contradictions buried in it. The girls do twerk in several sequenecs, but two key ones are decidely and deliberately uncomfortable viewing experiences, making us think about what young children are being exposed to and the messages mass media, social media, and consumer culture is sending to them.

It also has, as an integral part of the plot, the tensions in an immigrant Muslim household over the patriarch taking on a new wife, and the effects that that has on the young lead character, Aminata (Amy). I was sold by the film about 15 minutes in

Spoiler

when Amy hears her mother calling around to their acquaintances, trying to put up a brave face on her husband taking a new wife so that no one in their community will judge her badly, when in fact she's shattered by it and actually beats herself to try and force herself to continue making the calls.

The outrage over the film is just absurd. Bunch of nitwits.

[Zorral]

40 minutes ago, Ran said:

The outrage over the film is just absurd. Bunch of nitwits.

Time for a new Watch Watched Watching thread -- this one's over 420 comments.