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Watch, Watched, Watching: Three Monkeys Edition


Ran

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Freddie Mercury -- as opposed to Queen the group -- is a Very Big Thing across many demos of 30's and unders.  There are several biographies of him published in just the last two years, in both the US and in Europe, and particularly in Spain. There are courses in academia taught around him as a embodying queer and Asian-Parsi masculinity in public space, and so on.  The film's music components were particularly compelling to the professional and hope to be professional music demo as recorded and performed on screen, and so on and so forth.

That said, I haven't watched the film either, though a large swathe of the people I know best have.

 

 

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@Ran@briantw

I will just say that I put Banshee in a completely different level from True Blood and Spartacus. Yes, it's over the top in terms of sex and violence. But in a lot of ways, I think that's where the comparison ends for me. The storylines are over the top for this little area of PA but are grounded in some really interesting dynamics that area always intersecting. There is the Ukrainian mob, there are the Native Americans, there is the former Amish crime lord, white supremacists, local military and then on the other side, the cops and localized group of characters that are always shifting alliances depending on what's needed to get through the moment in time but have such a tight connection that they will go to any lengths to help/save each other. The other thing is that actions have consequences and things that happen earlier that you might dismiss will have a profound impact going forward. 

One other thing about Banshee is that they tried very hard to do innovative shit, especially in season 3. There are a number of episodes that just had one insane sequence after another and done in creative ways. I love the risks they took. The fight sequence in S03E03 is the best fight I've ever seen put on TV. Season 4 is a bit of a miss until the end, but up until that point, Season 1-3, as ridiculous as it was, was some very very good TV. I love Spartacus and respect what it did once it found it's footing but I think they're on different levels. True Blood to me isn't even close.

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In other news, we're burning through Better Call Saul. We're in the middle of season 4 right now and loving it. What a fantastic show and the way it interacts with Breaking Bad is just really well done. It makes me want to watch BB again after this and we probably will. Vince Gilligan and team did it again.

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Realised I bought Almost Human tv series on Amazon Instant Video years ago so finally watching it. Its a sci-fi cop shoe starring Karl Urban, cancelled after 1 season. Typical Fox; they showed it out of order. Pretty good. 
Also doing a Gotham rewatch (will be first watch of seasons 4 and 5).

Planning on rewatching Sunshine (film) soon, looking forward to seeing it on blu-ray on my new 4K tv

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53 minutes ago, Mexal said:

In other news, we're burning through Better Call Saul. We're in the middle of season 4 right now and loving it. What a fantastic show and the way it interacts with Breaking Bad is just really well done. It makes me want to watch BB again after this and we probably will. Vince Gilligan and team did it again.

Sadly I just read the final season won't be ready till next year. They also have no plans to do anything else in the "Breaking Bad Universe" for a while after that's done. 

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7 minutes ago, RumHam said:

They also have no plans to do anything else in the "Breaking Bad Universe" for a while after that's done. 

I think most of the main/interesting characters are getting a little too old to do much of anything anyway.  Other than the Badger/Skinny Pete sitcom of course.

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1 hour ago, Mexal said:

@Ran@briantw

I will just say that I put Banshee in a completely different level from True Blood and Spartacus. Yes, it's over the top in terms of sex and violence. But in a lot of ways, I think that's where the comparison ends for me. The storylines are over the top for this little area of PA but are grounded in some really interesting dynamics that area always intersecting. There is the Ukrainian mob, there are the Native Americans, there is the former Amish crime lord, white supremacists, local military and then on the other side, the cops and localized group of characters that are always shifting alliances depending on what's needed to get through the moment in time but have such a tight connection that they will go to any lengths to help/save each other. The other thing is that actions have consequences and things that happen earlier that you might dismiss will have a profound impact going forward. 

One other thing about Banshee is that they tried very hard to do innovative shit, especially in season 3. There are a number of episodes that just had one insane sequence after another and done in creative ways. I love the risks they took. The fight sequence in S03E03 is the best fight I've ever seen put on TV. Season 4 is a bit of a miss until the end, but up until that point, Season 1-3, as ridiculous as it was, was some very very good TV. I love Spartacus and respect what it did once it found it's footing but I think they're on different levels. True Blood to me isn't even close.

Kinda sounds like the baby resulting after Sons of Anarchy conjoined with Copper.  :cheers:  

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1 hour ago, DMC said:

I think most of the main/interesting characters are getting a little too old to do much of anything anyway.  Other than the Badger/Skinny Pete sitcom of course.

Personally I was hoping for a spin-off about Fing's family life called This is Gus. 

They can still do Kaylee's Revenge in like fifteen years. Maybe she goes after Walt Jr. or the baby. 

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57 minutes ago, briantw said:

It's kung fu Peaky Blinders.

Definitely thinking that too -- especially the 'family scenes' in the bars/post a scrap -- that opening of bottles and howling t the ceiling! (only half through)  While crossed with Sons of Anarchy and Copper.

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43 minutes ago, Zorral said:

Definitely thinking that too -- especially the 'family scenes' in the bars/post a scrap -- that opening of bottles and howling t the ceiling! (only half through)  While crossed with Sons of Anarchy and Copper.

You could superimpose several of these characters into Peaky Blinders and they'd be perfectly in their element.  Leary especially.  I feel like he's auditioning for Peaky Blinders on this show with the way he walks and mean mugs.  

Also, this may be a total coincidence, but I kind of love that the main character's name is basically pronounced as awesome.

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Watched the first episode of the fifth season of Outlander -- it just showed up on Netflix this week, while I think Amazon Prime had it exclusively for awhile. It was fine. It feels a bit meandering and low-stakes these days, but the performers are pleasant and it's a comfortable, easy way to pass an hour, I guess.

Also watched An Officer and a Spy (also known as J'Accuse, after what's surely one of the most famous newspaper headlines in history), which I've long wanted to see. This is not to be confused with An Officer and a Gentleman. :P It is a somewhat fictionalized account of the infamous Dreyfus Affair in France of the Belle Époque. In brief: the French military found evidence of a spy passing information to the German embassy's military attache, and with unseemly haste blamed Captain Alfred Dreyfus, an Alsatian Jew. Railroaded into a guilty verdict, he was sentenced to a solitary confinement on Devil's Island off the coast of French Guyana. Not long after, Lt. Colonel Picquart discovered that in fact Dreyfus was not the traitor, but rather another officer, and proceeded to try and see justice done (not so much for the sake of Dreyfus -- in fact, Picquart was an anti-semite -- but to protect the Army from being accused of a cover-up). What followed was, well, a cover-up, Picquart being silenced and ultimately imprisoned in turn, and eventual (very eventual) vindication involving Émile Zola's famous broadside against the military, a duel(!), an assassination attempt, a forgery, a suicide, and more. It's an incredible story.

It's handsomely directed, with Pawel Edelman (DP) choosing to use natural lighting in, I think, basically all scenes. It was shot on location in Paris and with exquisite costuming and so on, really bringing the era to life. Jean Dujardin (probably best known globally for the lead role in The Artist) as Picquart is excellent. As I understand it, the fictionalized aspects are fairly limited and are drawn from the source novel by Richard Harris -- Emmanuelle Seigner as his mistress is fictional (Picquart's romantic life appears to be a mystery), the fact that Dreyfus was Alsatian is never mentioned (Googling tells me that initially his being a German-speaking Alsatian was the initial focus of investigation, suggesting a motive of affinity for Germany  because it certainly was not monetary; his family was wealthy and he had much greater income than could be expected to be paid to a spy), and there's some minor moving around of timelines and so on. But a lot of the details are spot on.

The epilogue to the film was really fascinating, because it recounts the very last time Picquart and Dreyfus met, and it ends on a ... discordant note, in a way, a reminder that Picquart wasn't entirely motivated out of a sense of justice and fairness. I loved that, because it didn't tie everything up with a neat bow.

Despite being just past two hours long, there's hardly a wasted moment while evoking the era in ways both large and small. It's one of the better historical films I've seen of late, and probably the best film Roman Polanski has directed since The Pianist.

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On 2/28/2021 at 10:56 PM, DireWolfSpirit said:

I'm almost through the first season of-

Soviet Storm: WW2 in the East.

It's fantastic, covers the German invasion the siege of Leningrad, the siege of Stalingrad, the Battle for Moscow and so much more in just the first season (it's 2 seasons).

I highly recommend this. It's on Amazon Prime as well as Tubi.

https://g.co/kgs/7spvME

Omg, the Battle of Kursk is simply unimaginably destructive.

The Battle of Kursk was the largest tank battle in history, involving some 6,000 tanks, 2,000,000 troops, and 4,000 aircraft. It marked the decisive end of the German offensive capability on the Eastern Front and cleared the way for the great Soviet offensives of 1944–45.

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3 hours ago, Ran said:

Also watched An Officer and a Spy (also known as J'Accuse, after what's surely one of the most famous newspaper headlines in history), which I've long wanted to see.

I really enjoyed this novel by Richard Harris. I had no idea it was being adapted to film. I'll have to check it out.

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15 hours ago, briantw said:

I kind of love that the main character's name is basically pronounced as awesome.

That's right ... I hadn't noticed that, so thanks for pointing it out.  Though ... I had taken particular notice of his name, thinking it didn't sound like many Chinese names I've heard.  As I am so ignorant though of Chinese culture history -- not to mention how much of it there is, thousands and thousands of years -- I also think to myself, 'what do you know?'

That "Irish" figures predominately in Warrior, Peaky Blinders and Copper -- and then again, at least in one of the seasons particularly, of Sons of Anarchy, we would see resemblances.  Of course, Peaky B is classy brutality.  The others, well, they're definitely lower class.  :cheers:

How the showrunners pulled that off for PB, I'm not entirely sure, considering the brutality, blood and criminality are equal to the others. It mostly has a lot to do with the female characters in PB.  Yet, I can't quite figure that out either, as rape plays a role.  We do see prostitution.

 

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6 minutes ago, Astromech said:

I really enjoyed this novel by Richard Harris. I had no idea it was being adapted to film. I'll have to check it out.

I don't think it has been released in the US, and I don't think it will be for a good long while, if ever. Doesn't seem to have released in the UK either. There are region-free Blu-rays from France and elsewhere in Europe, but without English subtitles, I think (I watched it with Swedish subtitles).

I have heard that an English subbed version definitely exists, because it was what was shown at the Venice Film Festival, but not sure if that's findable anywhere.

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1 hour ago, Zorral said:

That's right ... I hadn't noticed that, so thanks for pointing it out. 

 

I didn't notice it until the duel late in season one when the crowd was chanting his name.

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