Watch, Watched, Watching: Sometimes I doubt your commitment to Sparkle Motion

[Aemon Stark]

Saw Wonder Woman 1984 on Wednesday. I actually enjoyed it, in contrast to most other DC movies lately, but that shouldn’t be interpreted that I think it was actually good. It was actually a disaster. 
 

 

The Good:

The villains! Pedro Pascal’s Max Lord character didn’t end up with the clearest of motivations, but I enjoyed watching him throughout. As a well-meaning version of 80s Trump he worked really well. Kristen Wiig’s Barbara Minerva started out as a bit of a caricature (echos of Pfeiffer’s Catwoman) but she’s always a magnetic presence on screen. Her initial Cheetah (was the name ever even mentioned?) progression was interesting and well-handled.  Unfortunately, the movie forgot about her by the epilogue, so her story didn’t get any kind of resolution. And she was absolutely right that Diana was patronizing and condescending her, essentially from the moment they met.

Otherwise some of Steve’s fish out of water experiences were amusing. And Lord’s reunion with his son at the end was well done even if the plot didn’t earn the moment. 

I enjoyed the monkey’s paw aspect to the dream stone plot, but it was disappointing that it didn’t come with a free frogurt. Generally the Simpsons covered this plot better in 1992.

The Bad:

The pacing was all over the place. As usual with superhero movies in the last 10 years, it was way over long at over 2 and a half hours. But the worst thing for me was Gal Gadot’s performance. She was wooden and boring. As I said above, she was patronizing to Barbara, and seemed to get impatient or annoyed with her throughout as if she should be her personal assistant. Or something. I don’t get what they were going for with that. And I was really confused why she didn’t interrogate Steve’s sudden unexplained reappearance. She hardly reacted at all, other than to be “in love” once again. 
 

Some of the plot points made not a bit of sense. Why does the Smithsonian have a hangar and tarmac with a fueled jet? Or a whole runway? How does a 1980s jet get from DC to Cairo without refueling? Where did they land in Egypt? Why does 1984 Cairo look like it did in Raiders of the Lost Ark? How does Steve know how to fly a jet? 

Finally, the rivalry between WW and Cheetah, despite being played up in the trailer, amounted to a brief fight scene at the White House and a badly animated CGI fight near the end. It wasn’t great. 

[WarGalley]

Finished The Queen's Gambit. Great production and nice story. Anya Taylor-Joy knocked it out of the park as beautifully gifted and flawed Beth Harmon. I'll be rooting for Beth come awards season. 

 

ETA: The final episode of the season, End Game, is a very solid episode start to finish. 

[Nictarion]

10 hours ago, Cas Stark said:

A Ghost Story.  It was okay, the first hour was soooooo slow, I kind of lost my taste for super pretentious movies sometime in my 30s, but the last hour was more interesting than the first, so on balance, okay, C+. 

Bet you never thought you’d watch a woman eat a pie for 10 minutes straight in a film...

[Veltigar]

Finished Cobra Kai season 3. Mark my words, this is probably going to be the best show I'll see in 2021. It's the best installment yet and anyone who isn't watching Cobra Kai is doing themselves a disservice basically! 

[Corvinus85]

Besides Cobra Kai, I've been watching the Spanish show El Cid on Amazon. I am intrigued by it, only at 2 episodes so far. The actors are way too old, but that's ok because I'm sure there will be some adult scenes. Still, Rodrigo to start out as a page when he looks 25 is a bit much. I was digging the 2nd episode, though, until the weird edit which ruined the duel near the end. WTF. But it did feature a better joust than the one in GoT season 1. 

[Iskaral Pust]

We watched all of Bridgerton S1 over the past week.  That was pretty much inevitable once it dropped.  The mix of an Austen-ish Regency-era romantic drama but with new characters and very high production values was catnip for my wife. What was the budget for that?  The various productions of Austen — movies and mini-series both — never approached those sets, costumes, cinematography or sprawling cast.  Yes, the racially inclusive casting requires some suspension of disbelief, but that has already been standard in most staged serious dramatic works for a decade or more, so why not push it into TV too?  It’s a brave new world for period pieces.

We also watched all of The Mandalorian S2, which is still a spaghetti western set in the Star Wars universe, with the galactic equivalents of train robberies, bandits chasing stagecoaches, sheriffs, marshals, cavalry, homesteaders, native Americans and gun slingers.  We enjoyed it and the conclusion was very satisfying.  It could just end there, but I gather there’s an S3 planned, presumably to pursue the new branch of plot.  Unfortunately for Disney, we’ll be canceling our Disney+ subscription again after just a month.  It’s worth switching on from time to time when there’s new content (Hamilton), or when my wife is craving some musicals, but not enough content to stick around for.  Does anyone want to rewatch Marvel movies?  I’m just relieved to be finished with them. 

[Deadlines? What Deadlines?]

Hulu's Catch-22: Anyone seen it?

[ljkeane]

After watching the excellent Apollo 13 again over Christmas I've been watching the tv version of The Right Stuff on Disney+. It's solid but not great but the subject matter is a lot of fun and I'm enjoying it.

[Veltigar]

4 hours ago, Deadlines? What Deadlines? said:

Hulu's Catch-22: Anyone seen it?

Yes, it is excellent. I expect to hear more from the lead actor in a few years!

[HexMachina]

I finished season 1 of the Boys today. That was a wild ride and I was very tempted to just jump straight into season 2 but I’m going to give myself a few hours break and go walking first. Really great show. I have no knowledge of the source material but I love the concept and think its well executed here.

Hoping to see more of Black Noir who was just there in the background all of season 1. I’m also curious to see how the main story plays out of course.

I also want to see more of the Deep

[Spockydog]

42 minutes ago, HelenaExMachina said:

I also want to see more of the Deep

*flashes back to one particular scene from S2* 

Careful what you wish for. 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

9 hours ago, Iskaral Pust said:

We also watched all of The Mandalorian S2, which is still a spaghetti western set in the Star Wars universe, with the galactic equivalents of train robberies, bandits chasing stagecoaches, sheriffs, marshals, cavalry, homesteaders, native Americans and gun slingers.  We enjoyed it and the conclusion was very satisfying.  

Funny, because the core of the story is based off a Japanese manga, and once you go down that rabbit hole, it's so much fun to see how East meets West as both are trying to tell the same stories, just with different cultural points. 

Quote

 Does anyone want to rewatch Marvel movies?  I’m just relieved to be finished with them. 

There's a point of diminishing returns. I compare it to Sting having sex. I'm sure that first hour was great, but by hour four, what are we doing here?

[HexMachina]

1 hour ago, Spockydog said:

*flashes back to one particular scene from S2* 

Careful what you wish for. 

More gill fingering?

 

*don’t actually tell me what you mean*

[Iskaral Pust]

48 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Funny, because the core of the story is based off a Japanese manga, and once you go down that rabbit hole, it's so much fun to see how East meets West as both are trying to tell the same stories, just with different cultural points. 

Samurai movies, especially Kurosawa, already had a big influence on western movies.  I don’t read any manga but I wouldn’t be shocked if crisscrossing influence had continued considering the similarities in their mythos.  The characterization, narratives, settings, imagery, set pieces (train robberies, stage coach robberies, saloon shoot-outs, etc), music, etc all draw heavily on the spaghetti westerns and original Hollywood westerns.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

16 minutes ago, Iskaral Pust said:

Samurai movies, especially Kurosawa, already had a big influence on western movies.  I don’t read any manga but I wouldn’t be shocked if crisscrossing influence had continued considering the similarities in their mythos.  The characterization, narratives, settings, imagery, set pieces (train robberies, stage coach robberies, saloon shoot-outs, etc), music, etc all draw heavily on the spaghetti westerns and original Hollywood westerns.

The underlying stories have a ton of overlap, and it's really fun when you find a Western and samurai story that didn't have a ton of mutual influences, but basically told the same tale albeit with the different cultural perspectives. They enrich one another to the benefit of us all.

[Deadlines? What Deadlines?]

6 hours ago, Veltigar said:

Yes, it is excellent. I expect to hear more from the lead actor in a few years!

Have you seen the original film?

[DaveSumm]

Bit late to the party, but I’m watching Raised By Wolves. Was there a thread about it? On the one hand, I kinda like sci-fi that’s comfortable being sci-fi and just goes all out with the robots and wars and spaceships and what not. But it’s also not truly great in any particular area, and the general world building of the factions is coming across as a bit corny. I feel like it hasn’t yet made some ham fisted commentary on religion, but it’s heading there, the way the ‘atheists’ and the sun worshipers are so neatly divided. I can’t decide how much I enjoy it at the moment.

[Zorral]

4 hours ago, Iskaral Pust said:

Samurai movies, especially Kurosawa, already had a big influence on western movies

Westerns helped create the samurai genre, to start with.  But with the reveal that The Magnificent Seven (1960) was a western retelling of the Seven Samurai (1954), the genre then provoked that popular tv series here, Kung Fu (1972-75), with Keith Carradine, who still holds the top spot of the worst hair on tv or movies ever.

But the Bruce Lee action movies got a big boost out of this, the first one here, 1973), though not western.  But there, the action movie, we really see Asian influence on US films and television getting going.

 

[DMC]

36 minutes ago, Zorral said:

Westerns helped create the samurai genre, to start with.  But with the reveal that The Magnificent Seven (1960) was a western retelling of the Seven Samurai (1954)

Moreover, A Fistful of Dollars - which popularized spaghetti westerns in the US - was an unauthorized near-shot-for-shot remake of Kurosawa's Yojimbo.  The two genres have always been inextricably intertwined.

[Zorral]

56 minutes ago, DMC said:

.  The two genres have always been inextricably intertwined.

Not always.  Really. The western was already rolling when the industry was still located in NY, and adapted in sections for those very short reels from western novels and so on, which were not informed by Japanese fiction, culture or anything other than the US's mythology of itself from the git go -- one man with a gun committing justified violence fixes everything.