Watch, Watched, Watching: We Need This!

[Heartofice]

Finished up Counterpart. 

Really fantastic show. Wish I'd jumped on board earlier. I was worried that it had been cancelled before it's time and so wasn't worth getting in to, but at 2 seasons it is the perfect length to tell the story it was trying to tell. 

Every performance is note worthy on the show, J.K Simmons does a bloody brilliant bit of acting in terms of showing two separate sides of the same character, at times looking 10 years older from just his body language. He really is good at this.

Also Olivia Williams really demonstrates how to be good at acting. Watching her perfect her art should be taught in acting classes. Ever facial expression, twitch, every line on her face is absolutely on point. Her ability to communicate through her body language blew me away. I hadn't really noticed her work in this way, the first time I seem to remember seeing her was in Rushmore. But she is so so good. 

But everyone on the show was brilliant. Harry Lloyd is slowly becoming one of my absolute favourites, I mean I knew he was good as Viserys, like really good.. but then I heard him reading Dunk and Egg and it was one of the first audible performances I noticed, and realised you could actually do audiobooks and put some life into them! 

Only criticism of the show was that the last episode tended to wrap itself up a little too neatly at times, I would have preferred a little more ambiguity, instead it felt a little safe. But otherwise I loved it.

[Cas Stark]

3 hours ago, Nictarion said:

Finished The Haunting of Bly Manor. The final scenes of the final episode choked me up a bit. Thoroughly enjoyed the season overall. I kind of hope Mike Flanagan keeps doing these anthology series for Netflix with a lot of the same cast. This is how it’s done right. Ryan Murphy could learn something. 

Finished today.  I liked it overall, but didn't love it.  Never warmed up to Pedretti, really.  I wasn't sold on changing the Quint/Jessel relationship as much as they did, but it ended up working pretty well. 

[Nictarion]

JFC episode 8 of The Vow... 

Keith Raniere was basically a real life version of Tom Cruise’s character from Magnolia.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

7 minutes ago, Nictarion said:

JFC episode 8 of The Vow... 

Keith Raniere was basically a real life version of Tom Cruise’s character from Magnolia.

I haven't seen it, but it still blows my mind that the two cute women from Smallville got caught up in this sex cult.

[dbunting]

On 10/9/2020 at 4:38 PM, RumHam said:

Just saw they're doing another follow up called Masters of The Air but it'll be on Apple TV which I always forget is a thing. 

Yeah i just saw an article for that. Also agree with the article that Pacific was not nearly as good as BOB.

Theaters near me opened this weekend finally. Saw Tenet. It was a bit confusing at times and yet still able to see the couple surprises coming. Not a bad movie. It was that or The New mutants and I remember mutants getting bad reviews here.

One thing that sucked for me was you can't add your own butter to the popcorn. They used to offer brown paper bags and you could dump half the popcorn in there, then add butter to main bag and refill it with the brown bag popcorn so you could get butter all through it without adding too much of it. Really sucked for me! Also they used to have those flavor shakers, those are gone and they have to salt it for you if you add salt. Damn you covid!

[Fez]

I re-watched Spaced, the circa-2000 Simon Pegg/Jessica Stevenson TV show. There's a couple extremely dated moments, but overall it holds up really well I think. Still funny, still relevant re: late 20s/early 30s angst and uncertainly.

[Corvinus85]

I'm re-watching Daredevil. Just a few more episodes left. Season 3 is my favorite season. All three seasons could have benefited from some trimming, but at least season 3's more filler stuff doesn't deal with the Hand, Stick or Elektra. I've actually fast-forwarded through most of that stuff in season 2, where the presence of the Punisher was the best thing about it.

Also watched Remember the Titans. It had its 20 year anniversary a couple of weeks ago. It's been a while since I've seen it. One of the best true-story sports movies ever.

[RumHam]

On 10/11/2020 at 12:04 PM, Luzifer's right hand said:

It seems the is no (legal) way to stream Bob’s Burgers season 7+ in Austria. DVDs are avaliable but I don't want to watch it on low res. Amazon started streaming season 6 earlier this year. 

I wish normal TV would die as local stations owning the rights is the source ok the problem afaik.

I don't understand why Simpsons is on Disney+ but Bob's Burgers isn't. 

[Ran]

1 hour ago, RumHam said:

I don't understand why Simpsons is on Disney+ but Bob's Burgers isn't. 

As I understand it, the streaming rights for the latter show are currently licensed to Hulu, so until that deal is up or modified, Disney+ can't stream it. 

[Aemon Stark]

I’ll definitely keep Disney+ if Bob’s Burgers gets added.

I still don’t get why all the Touchstone/Hollywood pictures movies haven’t appeared. 

[RedEyedGhost]

I rewatched all of The IT Crowd recently.  Damn, I love that show.  Especially season 2.

Now am rewatching The Boys season 1 (with season 2 finishing).  Enjoying it nearly as much as the first time.

Halfway through season 2 of Luke Cage - liking it a heck of a lot more than I expected to.  Really digging Bushmaster; so much better than Diamondback.  And Mariah is improved this go round too.

[Ran]

I was buzzing on Lost in Translation when I came across the suggestion that Spike Jonze's Her should essentially be considered a kind of response to the film, down to having Scarlett Johansson in a lead role (though, interestingly, that was a very late decision after Samantha Morton had already recorded most of the dialog for the film). After all, Lost in Translation was made as Coppola's marriage to Jonze was running towards its end, and Coppola admitted there were aspects of Jonze and herself in the film's counterparts, while Her feels like Jonze committing to the screen his feelings and experiences from the divorce and aftermath.

So, decided to rewatch it instead of jumping to something else. It's another film I adore, in part because of its atmosphere and scoring choices, and certainly for the performances. It's one of the best science fiction films of the previous decade, IMO, and achieves that while being extraordinarily humane. Also, Jonze's chops in just creating a world are strong -- the whole design of the production feels just right. 

Does it work paired with LiT? I think so. There's even a video on Vimeo that notes that some of the recurring imagery in Her matches recurring imagery in Lost in Translation in a way that feels just a bit beyond entirely coincidental, which I never considered before:

(A really great comment to this video suggests that in fact there is a third film that makes an unofficial trilogy: from Jonze's frequent collaborator, Charlie Kaufman's Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Yep, these three films definitely dovetail together.)

[Zorral]

7 hours ago, Ran said:

It's one of the best science fiction films of the previous decade, IMO, and achieves that while being extraordinarily humane. Also, Jonze's chops in just creating a world are strong -- the whole design of the production feels just right. 

[Ran]

Also watched Alfred Hitchcock's The 39 Steps from 1935, 4 years prior his making the move to Hollywood. I admit I am not terribly familiar with pre-Hollywood Hitchcock, and feel embarrassed to say that despite knowing that this film is largely considered the first real classic film Hitchcock made. But now, thanks to a streaming film website filled with classics in various language that I can "borrow" films from via my local library (yay, Sweden!), I've been able to correct the lapse.

It is, first off, very much of its era in its storytelling and depictions -- it has a lot of pithy banter and light humor, broad caricatures (especially of Scottish characters), and a decided sexism matched with unnatural romance (the lead first accosts, then later forces her to flee with him, a woman who ends up falling in love with him, and he with her, after knowing one another for about the span of a single evening). But it is taut, and features some of the Hitchcockian technical wizardry that would become a hallmark of the director (there's a fantastic hidden cut that makes it look like the camera smoothly moves from a car's interior to watching it recede into the distance; it was so smooth I had to re-watch it in admiration).

It has a lot of elements that Hitchcock would revisit in later days, especially the innocent-man-on-the-run motif and the use of a MacGuffin as an animating part of the plot. It's not wrong to say that, to  a certain degree, North by Northwest is basically a grander, much more expensive remake of this film. All in all, very fun, brisk film. Robert Donat, who plays the lead character, was a handsome, dashing presence and carried off the patter very well, particularly a funny scene where he's mistaken for a speaker at a political campaign rally and ends up working the crowd into a frenzy. Chronic asthma hampered his career and he died, untimely, of complications from a brain tumor at the age of 53. He was Edmond Dantes is the 1934 Count of Monte Cristo, and won the Academy Award for the titular role in Goodbye, Mr. Chips. 

[Aemon Stark]

13 hours ago, Ran said:

After all, Lost in Translation was made as Coppola's marriage to Jonze was running towards its end, and Coppola admitted there were aspects of Jonze and herself in the film's counterparts, while Her feels like Jonze committing to the screen his feelings and experiences from the divorce and aftermath.

By Jonze's counterpart, we mean Giovanni Ribisi's photographer character, right? 

[Ran]

38 minutes ago, Aemon Stark said:

By Jonze's counterpart, we mean Giovanni Ribisi's photographer character, right? 

Ah, yeah. Coppola says it’s not some one to one thing, but there are elements of Jonze and her experiences with him in Ribisi’s character and his relationship with Johansson’s character. (Also elements of Cameron Diaz and other people she knew in Anna Faris’s character. How much is Diaz is a question, given how unflattering the depiction of the character is.)

[briantw]

On 10/11/2020 at 1:11 PM, Argonath Diver said:

Finished up my Justified watch last night. I'm absolutely terrible at continuing through full series. I'm glad I did with this one. The last season was a lot of fun. Seemed like just the right length to end it on. I had a lull there in, oh, season 3 or 4, can't recall, that felt pretty weak. 

I won't bother with a long-winded review. It was a lot of fun, with plenty of recognizable actors chewing it up. Most attempts at outright humor failed miserably, but most of the actors had enough charm to overcome their dialogue.

From a bartender's perspective, boy was there a lot of whiskey drank - to be expected, as the show takes place in Kentucky. A couple beers here and there, and I am pretty confident in saying that in the entire six seasons portraying drinking in private or in bars, not a single solitary time did you see a character take a sip from a wine glass.

I just finished re-watching this one last week.  It's easily one of my top ten all time favorites.  It's just so much fun; a modern day western set in rural Kentucky with some of TV's best actors looking like they're all having the time of their lives.

As far as the drinking goes, I'm pretty sure this show had some kind of deal with Buffalo Trace, because the only things I ever see anyone drinking are Blanton's, Elmer T Lee, and Pappy.

I disagree on the humor, though.  I think Justified is hilarious.  Tons of great lines and some laugh out loud moments too, like when the one-legged man jumps out the window, slides down the flag pole, and then flips Raylan off, and all Raylan can do is nod in respect.  Basically every interaction between Raylan and Art or Raylan and Tim is golden, and Walton Goggins basically just steals every scene he's in.  It pains me seeing Goggins wasting his time on shitty network sitcoms when he's capable of this, or his performance on The Shield.

Also, bonus points for the show sticking the landing.  It subverted expectations in the finale and had probably the best last line in TV history.

[Argonath Diver]

1 hour ago, briantw said:

I just finished re-watching this one last week.  It's easily one of my top ten all time favorites.  It's just so much fun; a modern day western set in rural Kentucky with some of TV's best actors looking like they're all having the time of their lives.

As far as the drinking goes, I'm pretty sure this show had some kind of deal with Buffalo Trace, because the only things I ever see anyone drinking are Blanton's, Elmer T Lee, and Pappy.

I disagree on the humor, though.  I think Justified is hilarious.  Tons of great lines and some laugh out loud moments too, like when the one-legged man jumps out the window, slides down the flag pole, and then flips Raylan off, and all Raylan can do is nod in respect.  Basically every interaction between Raylan and Art or Raylan and Tim is golden, and Walton Goggins basically just steals every scene he's in.  It pains me seeing Goggins wasting his time on shitty network sitcoms when he's capable of this, or his performance on The Shield.

Also, bonus points for the show sticking the landing.  It subverted expectations in the finale and had probably the best last line in TV history.

Great point about Buffalo. I wasn't aware they owned those other brands, and you're absolutely right that they are all four displayed prominently, and never Beam, etc. You do see, what was it I think Glenlivet 15 given to the old granny in the last season. I always watch booze in shows, as per my career, and they did a pretty fair job representing proper drinking habits - other than the general standard that "acting drunk" on screen is ridiculously dumb compared to actual intoxication - but pretty much no one gets that right, so no biggie.

I suppose I was too snappy about the humor. I did have a damned great time on some of the lighter parts; that bit with the one legged guy was indeed a riot. I rolled my eyes fairly often when a poorly written line couldn't hit, despite a bunch of terrific actors trying hard. That said, Patton Oswalt was a damn treat and I adore every moment Constable Bob is on screen.

Spoiler

If they'd killed him with anything less than a totally valiant death, I was going to be furious. Sure enough, he was quite the awkward badass. Same goes for Ella May - I was genuinely nervous as hell that they were going to kill her off, and I was going to go nuts. I kinda wish they'd shown her out living a happy life in WitSec - if they did, I missed it. She was probably my favorite side character, and her heavier scenes were among the only ones that got my room a little dusty through.

It's definitely in my top 10 shows ever, although like I said I am absolutely terrible at actually sticking with TV in general. I am very glad they stuck the landing, indeed. No spoilers to the uninitiated, but it was that perfect mix of closed loops and unexplained futures.

I'm amazed at how many recognizable actors they got, and like you said everyone seemed to be having a total blast throughout. Very glad I watched it.

Oh, while I'm babbling, great point about that final line:

Spoiler

I don't know about you but I 100% knew it was coming the moment Goggins asked, and I absolutely whooped out loud at the fade out. Just fantastic. 

 

[RumHam]

2 hours ago, briantw said:

I just finished re-watching this one last week.  It's easily one of my top ten all time favorites.  It's just so much fun; a modern day western set in rural Kentucky with some of TV's best actors looking like they're all having the time of their lives.

As far as the drinking goes, I'm pretty sure this show had some kind of deal with Buffalo Trace, because the only things I ever see anyone drinking are Blanton's, Elmer T Lee, and Pappy.

I disagree on the humor, though.  I think Justified is hilarious.  Tons of great lines and some laugh out loud moments too, like when the one-legged man jumps out the window, slides down the flag pole, and then flips Raylan off, and all Raylan can do is nod in respect.  Basically every interaction between Raylan and Art or Raylan and Tim is golden, and Walton Goggins basically just steals every scene he's in.  It pains me seeing Goggins wasting his time on shitty network sitcoms when he's capable of this, or his performance on The Shield.

Also, bonus points for the show sticking the landing.  It subverted expectations in the finale and had probably the best last line in TV history.

I love Justified too, but there were times it pained me seeing Goggins wasting his time on it. 

This is probably an unpopular opinion but It's not a very consistent show. I haven't re-watched it since it ended it's run and off the top of my head I can think of several terrible plotlines: Dewey's Family,  Ava is The New Black, Who stole Sam Elliot's mustache?, Get Drew (Oh wait no he's the publicly elected sheriff!)

The second season is near perfect. I don't know if that's cause part of it was loosely based on an Elmore Leonard's writings, or just because of Character Actress Margo Martindale. The third season is great also. The Crowe season borders on outright bad.  The last season is a convoluted mess.

The first season is episodic bullshit but it gets like, FX interesting towards the end.  

Edit: The least season is a convoluted mess with an very emotionaly satisfying final exchange between the two leads. and people mistake that for a good finale / final season. 

[briantw]

28 minutes ago, RumHam said:

I love Justified too, but there were times it pained me seeing Goggins wasting his time on it. 

This is probably an unpopular opinion but It's not a very consistent show. I haven't re-watched it since it ended it's run and off the top of my head I can think of several terrible plotlines: Dewey's Family,  Ava is The New Black, Who stole Sam Elliot's mustache?, Get Drew (Oh wait no he's the publicly elected sheriff!)

The second season is near perfect. I don't know if that's cause part of it was loosely based on an Elmore Leonard's writings, or just because of Character Actress Margo Martindale. The third season is great also. The Crowe season borders on outright bad.  The last season is a convoluted mess.

The first season is episodic bullshit but it gets like, FX interesting towards the end.  

Edit: The least season is a convoluted mess with an very emotionaly satisfying final exchange between the two leads. and people mistake that for a good finale / final season. 

I thought the last episode had some other great moments as well, like the stand-off between Raylan and Boon.  When I first watched the show, I didn't really care for Boon, but his Doc Holliday imitation has grown on me with subsequent viewings, and he's a nice counterpart to Raylan's more serious Wyatt Earp-esque persona.  I also like how they teased that there'd be no resolution between the two as Raylan was driving off into the sunset to the typical season-ending tune, "You'll Never Leave Harlan Alive."

Agree that the second season is near perfect.

I just find it hard to fault the show much as a whole because, even though some seasons are vastly superior to others, when I'm watching it I find myself enjoying damn near every episode because all the characters are so great.  I think all the ridiculous accents and witty banter paper over a lot of the show's flaws to the point where I'm just invested, even during a rewatch.  Like, I know the Crowe season is inferior to season two, but when I'm watching it it's hard to care because it's fucking fun and it knows it's fucking fun.

So yeah, there are flaws.  Plenty of them.  But fuck it.  I love this show.  I'll always love this show, flaws be damned.  It's not a masterpiece like The Wire, but not every show needs to be for me to love it.  It's a show with several of my all-time favorite television characters and, in my opinion, some of the best dialogue writing on TV, with better character banter than most comedies.  

And I totally disagree on Goggins wasting his time on this show.  He made this show.  He steals every scene he's in and his performance is one of my favorites in television history.  I have to imagine his Boyd Crowder performance is what landed him a role in Hateful Eight.