Watch, Watched, Watching: We Need This!

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

2 hours ago, Veltigar said:

How did it kill Black Bond? 

Oh wait is it 

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the Home Alone stuff?

 

The connect the name to his actually family. If they hadn't done that, you could change him out with other people. Imagine a film in which Bond......dies at the end. And in the post credit scene you see M interviewing someone, with the final line being something like "Are you ready to be a double agent, Mr. Bond?", and it pans up to show Elba. That's how you get a black Bond. It also makes a ton of sense because throughout the earlier films criminals know the name Bond, but no one knows what he looks like. It would make more sense if it was an alias. 

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They'd be better of ignoring everything after Casino Royal anyways. A shitty streak that has been.

QoS is a lot better if you watch it right after CR. Skyfall was alright, but way over hyped. Only the last one stunk. I fall asleep every time I've watched it.

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+ Aren't most major actors midgets anyways?

Not really, but Hollywood is guilty of trying to make a 5'7 look 6'2.

 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

6 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

Can't disagree with the first bit. However it means that Craig looks like someone you wouldn't want to mess with or meet in a dark alley. He looks like a thug. Classic Bond is suave and sophisticated, a charming ladies man, but with an edge. Craig just has the edge and doesn't really manage the rest of it. 

Craig is all of those things Imo. 

[Heartofice]

4 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Craig is all of those things Imo. 

Nah.

[DMC]

I really liked Skyfall  

As for Craig being too "thuggish," I think that's rubbish.  He had a very good mix of intimidating while also the classic Bond suave and sophisticated in my book.  But I'm just a classless American that has no real concept of the latter of course.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

5 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

Nah.

Craig is a suave ladies man, and the sophistication of the character has always been overrated. Give me the realistic Bond over the cartoonish one everyday, and Hardy should do a good job at that. 

4 minutes ago, DMC said:

I really liked Skyfall  

Look at the release date. I was in the heart of the 2012 campaign trail when it came out, and after the elections I needed a few weeks to just relax and sleep. Weeks of hearing the hype led me to believe it was going to be better than CR. I was rather let down when I finally got around to seeing it.

[dbunting]

Finished S2 of the Umbrella Academy and liked it just about as much as S1, pretty close anyway.

Spoiler

I like that they have set up S3 to be different, don't think this apocalypse of the season thing would hold up.

Not committing to a new series right now just watching some Grand Tour when I have time. It's not as good as when they were on Top Gear but still enjoyable if you like car shows.

At some point i need to watch the last season of Dark. Just can't get myself to do it because I know I have to really focus on everything that happens, not the type of show you can watch on cruise control.

[Zorral]

Even though it name checks Indiana Jones franchise, the Hardy as Bond thang came immediately to mind when I saw this Foxtrot comic:

http://wpcomics.washingtonpost.com/client/wpc/ft/

I don 't like Hardy as an actor with a very exceptions, particularly his penchant to mumble through so many nuts he's unintelligible.  Though he impersonates loutish thug beautifully.  Never saw him do anything else, at least not successfully.

 

 

[Cas Stark]

Tom Hardy.  Hmmm.  I don't immediately hate the idea, don't love it either.  

I liked Skyfall a lot, not as great as Casino Royale, but good, and would put Craig as almost the equal of Connery in terms of the right mix of Bond qualities.  But, then I thought Craig was a bad pick and I was wrong, and I thought Brosnan was genius and he ended up just okay. So, what do I know. 

[SpaceChampion]

Bond is thin on character regardless of who plays him.  Nothing about the role requires any specific height.  You just need an actor that doesn't mind the lack of character and loves all the money.  Get Pauly Shore for all i care.

I don't think great actors should be slumming with a Bond film.  Clearly Craig hated it.

[williamjm]

I watched Ford vs Ferrari. I thought it was an entertaining film, although out of recent motor racing biopics I preferred Rush. In some ways it feels slightly misnamed since the real struggle is between Shelby and Miles and their paymasters at Ford. It probably wouldn't have been hard to paint Enzo Ferrari as the villain of the piece but as shown here he is resisting the attempts by an American corporation to take away his control of his racing team. There is therefore a bit of a contradiction where the audience wants Shelby and Miles to succeed because they are sympathetic characters but perhaps at the same time doesn't really want Ford to win even though that's what would be necessary for them to get their victory. The race scenes were exciting and the end of the Le Mans race is one of those things where history is stranger than anything a scriptwriter would have made up. I thought Damon and Bale were both good, even if Bale's accent does seem to be doing a tour of various parts of England throughout the film.

[Veltigar]

You know, I like the discussions  Bring on more controversial topics.

9 hours ago, DMC said:

I blame Scientology.  

I dunno, when I saw Casino Royale I was like "oh, it's that dude from Elizabeth, Road to Perdition, and Munich."  Obviously those didn't make him a big star, but he wasn't a complete unkown or nobody to me.

Brosnan had a successful tv show before Bond  I'm not saying they should be Lazenby's picked up from the streets, but small-time actors with a past in tv or character roles in big budget filmst that is the right way to go!

9 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

The connect the name to his actually family. If they hadn't done that, you could change him out with other people. Imagine a film in which Bond......dies at the end. And in the post credit scene you see M interviewing someone, with the final line being something like "Are you ready to be a double agent, Mr. Bond?", and it pans up to show Elba. That's how you get a black Bond. It also makes a ton of sense because throughout the earlier films criminals know the name Bond, but no one knows what he looks like. It would make more sense if it was an alias. 

 

Or they could just keep on doing the same thing they always do, just cast another actor without acknowledging any changes  That's part of the brilliance of the Bond franchise. They can replace Hardy with an one-armed Chinese pirate and yet he'd still be the same Bond.

As an aside that intro of Elba you propose would be horrible. Talk about woke washing. If they go for a female bond or a black bond or the aforementioned one-armed Chinese pirate bond then they should just treat it like all recastings. It's not a big deal.

9 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

QoS is a lot better if you watch it right after CR. Skyfall was alright, but way over hyped. Only the last one stunk. I fall asleep every time I've watched it.

 

QoS is dogshit. I would probably rate it higher than Spectre and Skyfall because it is forgettable and I don't think it damages the franchise the way those others did, but it's hardly a master piece.

9 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

Craig is all of those things Imo. 

8 hours ago, DMC said:

I really liked Skyfall  

As for Craig being too "thuggish," I think that's rubbish.  He had a very good mix of intimidating while also the classic Bond suave and sophisticated in my book.  But I'm just a classless American that has no real concept of the latter of course.

I'm so glad someone said it  Although this time I agree with your take on Craigbond.

4 hours ago, Cas Stark said:

Tom Hardy.  Hmmm.  I don't immediately hate the idea, don't love it either.   

Yeah, I guess that also sums up my feelings. Still feels like a wasted opportunity.

 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

I just happened to come here to see the football takes. I'll club you with the missing arm of that Chinese pirate later, Velt. 

[Veltigar]

14 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

I just happened to come here to see the football takes. I'll club you with the missing arm of that Chinese pirate later, Velt. 

Perhaps you can call in the help of your fellow trekkies  apparently the source for HardyBond is quite dubious.

 

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2020/sep/21/007-heaven-why-tom-hardy-as-the-new-bond-is-too-good-to-be-true

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

51 minutes ago, Veltigar said:

Perhaps you can call in the help of your fellow trekkies  apparently the source for HardyBond is quite dubious.

 

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2020/sep/21/007-heaven-why-tom-hardy-as-the-new-bond-is-too-good-to-be-true

*mumbles something at you* 

[RumHam]

On 9/19/2020 at 7:19 AM, Ramsay B. said:

I’ve watched the first 3 episodes and I’m on the fence about it. I actually thought the 3rd one was decent enough, despite the horrible special effects, but not really excited about continuing. Seeing the lackluster opinions about future episodes here isn’t helping things either. 

Re: Lovecaft Country, the last two episodes have been great. I was getting some American Horror Story vibes there for a few episodes, never a good thing. But at this point I'm in at least for the rest of the season.

[Zorral]

5 hours ago, Veltigar said:

Perhaps you can call in the help of your fellow trekkies  apparently the source for HardyBond is quite dubious.

 

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2020/sep/21/007-heaven-why-tom-hardy-as-the-new-bond-is-too-good-to-be-true

Saw that.  Ha!  Definitely taking it as a trekkie fantasy not for real, coz do not want Hardy -- not that it matters really to me or anyone else.

Re Skyfall -- it had one of the very best theme songs - singers, whatever else one says about it.  So good, I actually watched this one in a theater, after not watching a single Bond since whenever.  Since I've caught up on most of the Bonds.  But streaming, not in a theater.  They seemed to work well for me during the coming on of the darkest days of unknowing last winter.  Both Brosnan and Craig worked for me, whereas Connery just doesn't.  Like CR and QoS (which has still got to be the worst title ever) very much, as back-to-backers.

 

[RumHam]

I was just randomly reminded of Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark and thought "whatever happened to that movie they were making?" and it turns out the answer is it came out last year to generally positive reviews. Anyone see it? I'd have to sign up for the hulu Showtime thingy to watch it and I'm not sure if it's worth it. 

[Aemon Stark]

2 hours ago, RumHam said:

I was just randomly reminded of Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark and thought "whatever happened to that movie they were making?" and it turns out the answer is it came out last year to generally positive reviews. Anyone see it? I'd have to sign up for the hulu Showtime thingy to watch it and I'm not sure if it's worth it. 

I saw it in theatres when it came out. It has a few lulls/logical lapses in the last 25-30 minutes, but generally was effective. As you might expect, the "scary" aspects were more conceptual and visual than just having "jump" thrills. And the visual design and art direction legitimately brought to life those disturbing images from the original editions of the books. The illustrations definitely bothered me a lot when I was 8 and the movie wasn't much different. 

[RumHam]

19 minutes ago, Aemon Stark said:

I saw it in theatres when it came out. It has a few lulls/logical lapses in the last 25-30 minutes, but generally was effective. As you might expect, the "scary" aspects were more conceptual and visual than just having "jump" thrills. And the visual design and art direction legitimately brought to life those disturbing images from the original editions of the books. The illustrations definitely bothered me a lot when I was 8 and the movie wasn't much different. 

SOLD. Thanks.

[Heartofice]

I re-watched The Departed last night. Again, like Gravity, hadn't seen it since it was in theatres. 

A couple of things struck me. Firstly, I think I actually really enjoyed it this time, it really is one of those stories with a great concept, some good performances and it's really a lot of fun perversely. 

This is one of the few roles for DiCaprio that I actually enjoyed and felt he managed to inhabit really well. I often have a bit of an issue when watching him, because he just looks like Leonardo DiCaprio the whole time and all I see is some guy acting. But here he does a really good job, he looks withered and battered emotionally. It was a role I think he was suited to, and I don't think that often.

The beginning 10 minutes of this movie was basically every Scorsese movie ever. Young kid growing up in a dodgy neighbourhood, gets into learning how to be a man through violence. It took me back to watching The Irishman, and remembering why I groaned realising it was just the same old path he keeps treading. Luckily its a very small part of The Departed.

Nicholson is actually simply too JACK in this. He gurns and grimaces his way through the whole thing, doing what he does, sometimes has a stray accent, sometimes not. Sure he is mesmerising on the screen, but he's just doing what he normally does and while he adds some terror to the character, I think it takes away from the illusion. 

Also paying attention to the directorial style here, it really is all over the place. The camera jumps about all over the place, in some scenes, other times its very steady. During the scene where DiCaprio chases Damon, it is shot in this quite stylised way, almost an homage to Hong Kong cinema.. but it is the only time he really does that, so it feels odd. 

I think it is a better movie than I remembered, it has its flaws though. Maybe my initial viewing was spoiled because I had seen Infernal Affairs around that time, but now I can barely remember what happened in that movie so I could concentrate better.