Watch, Watched, Watching: Coming 2 America is the reward for our sinful life

[Ran]

Re-watched Sneakers, a film I haven't seen in many years. An early 90s caper film with an amazing cast (Robert Redford, Sidney Poitier, Dan Akroyd, Ben Kingsley, River Phoenix, David Strathairn, James Early Jones, Mary McDonnell, Stephen Tobolowsky), it's slight (as caper films tend to be) but charming. It does have a couple of doozies in terms of plotting (e.g a top-secret project's purpose is hidden within an anagram) but it's just so chipper and pleasant that it detracts very little. A rather prescient foreboding of our current condition vis-à-vis electronic information, personal data, and so on comes near the end (little surprise; it was written by the guys behind WarGames, Lawrence Lasker and Walter F. Parkes, who initially conceived of the idea while working on that film.)

Well directed by Phil Alden Robinson, who took this on as his follow-up to Field of Dreams. It's nice to see a good, old-fashioned film that doesn't lean on constant cutting or hyperactive camera movement.

[Zorral]

Watching, about an ep a week of each. What they have in common, is they're not US productions nor set in the US -- though sometimes I've thought, as while watching something like the Lucy Lawless My Life Is Murder, that we've re-entered the pre-Tower of Babel condition: at the top, all these cities across the world look the same, with the same brands, the same coffee shops and cafes, the same ridiculously tall glass and steel towers, same clothes, same hair styles, etc.

Brokenwood Mysteries (New Zealand); Bloodlands (Ireland); Jack Irish (Australia); Murdoch Mysteries (Canada); and starting tomorrow, Murder in Paradise (a fictional Guadeloupe, called Saint-Marie).

Wednesday I begin Exterminate All The Brutes on HBO.

[dbunting]

I made the mistake of watching Godzilla vs Kong or whatever it's called today while killing time. Blechh. Even knowing it wouldn't be good I was still disappointed.

[williamjm]

Partly inspired by the discussion of John Carpenter films earlier in this thread and noticing that it was on Netflix and I hadn't seen it for many years I watched They Live. I had forgotten that for the first half there are only hints of what the film is going to turn into, it's a very mundane film until Roddy Piper puts on the sunglasses for the first time. It does then turn into a ridiculous but fun b-movie.

I think we can all agree this is the greatest line in the history of cinema:

 

[WarGalley]

I watched the first 4 episodes of Invincible on Amazon in order to take a break from the seriousness of The Americans. I enjoyed it well enough though none of the tropes or shock moments are a real surprise. It treats the superhero genre like The Boys does but more cartoon-comedically (if that makes sense) and where the protagonist is going through high school growing pains ala Peter Parker. 

EDIT: I rather liked the villains and their treatment of the Justice League quite a bit.

I was shocked to discover Episode 5 hadn't been released yet. I can't recall the last show I watched on a weekly real-time basis and my need for immediate satisfaction in today's binging world was very stark and clear.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

I watched  What Lies Below so you didn't have to. Take a hard pass on this one. Number 3 on Netflix *grumbles*....

[BigFatCoward]

On 4/2/2021 at 3:21 PM, mormont said:

I recently watched both Fleabag and Chewing Gum for the first time, at the same time. It was an interesting compare and contrast: lots in common, but very different too. I concluded that I probably preferred Chewing Gum because I liked the characters more, but the performances in Fleabag are undoubtedly better (even if I think the writing is just about on a par). Phoebe Waller-Bridge is sensational but so too are Olivia Colman and Bill Patterson. The three of them can communicate so much in a scene.

Watched chewing gum because of this and you weren't wrong about the acting. In some cases its really detracting from the quality of the writing which has some really excellent laugh out loud moments, almost getting lost due to delivery (the performances in fleabag are not a fair comparison as they are really top level performances). 

[Mark Antony]

12 hours ago, dbunting said:

I made the mistake of watching Godzilla vs Kong or whatever it's called today while killing time. Blechh. Even knowing it wouldn't be good I was still disappointed.

Makes me wonder what people think they’re going to get when popping on one of these monster movies. I mean the movie is popcorn entertainment but it’s pretty much exactly what you would expect out of something called Godzilla vs Kong.

[Luzifer's right hand]

8 hours ago, WarGalley said:

I watched the first 4 episodes of Invincible on Amazon in order to take a break from the seriousness of The Americans. I enjoyed it well enough though none of the tropes or shock moments are a real surprise. It treats the superhero genre like The Boys does but more cartoon-comedically (if that makes sense) and where the protagonist is going through high school growing pains ala Peter Parker. 

EDIT: I rather liked the villains and their treatment of the Justice League quite a bit.

I was shocked to discover Episode 5 hadn't been released yet. I can't recall the last show I watched on a weekly real-time basis and my need for immediate satisfaction in today's binging world was very stark and clear.

I'm no fan of the return to weekly releases either. I actually postpone watching series that I do not expect to be spoiled about sometimes for that reason. 

[RumHam]

I think my favorite thing about Godzilla V Kong has to be that the scientist says something like "Kong can't leave this island or Godzilla will come and kill him!" Then five minutes later she agrees to help take him off the island with no plan in place to prevent or mitigate a godzilla attack. Then they all seem totally surprised and unprepared when godzilla attacks. 

And then they stop the attack by....powering down their ships. So presumably godzilla thought "Even though I didn't kill him that giant monkey I hate must be dead because I don't detect any electricity." 

[DireWolfSpirit]

I just want to comment on how grossly unfair all the fighting scenes were in Godzilla v Kong.

Kong also had the military on his side with Navy and Air Force support against Godzilla. It was like the ape brought a bazooka to a knife fight. I have lost all respect for King Kong who obviously is a dirty fighter.

Extremely disillusioned here!

[Mark Antony]

 To be fair the first fight was in the ocean which is a complete disadvantage to Kong 

 not to mention he has been heavily sedated. Godzilla whooped his ass fair and square in Hong Kong though

 

[WarGalley]

5 minutes ago, DireWolfSpirit said:

I just want to comment on how grossly unfair all the fighting scenes were in Godzilla v Kong.

Kong also had the military on his side with Navy and Air Force support against Godzilla. It was like the ape brought a bazooka to a knife fight. I have lost all respect for King Kong who obviously is a dirty fighter.

Extremely disillusioned here!

Sarcasm? I haven't seen it yet but I'm still not quite clear how they could level the playing field between Kong and Godzilla. Godzilla can shoot a nuclear laser from his mouth. Sure Kong can wield weapons.. but what weapons realistically exist at his size? And since he doesn't live in an equally sized scale jungle where he can climb trees and be more maneuverable in the environment, it should be no contest really.

[Corvinus85]

Another gem from Godzilla vs Kong:

Spoiler

So in the Hollow Earth, we see them falling, then they fall the other way, redress and hit the ground. Then Kong runs around for a while, fighting some monsters, until he finds this balanced area with rocks. He then jumps up, passes the rocks, and essentially the new ground is the ceiling. There he finds the hall of his people, and activates the axe. Godzilla senses this, and drills a hole from Hong Kong right into the hall (convenient right?) Then an enraged Kong jumps down into the hole, and then climbs out of the hole in Hong Kong. In the words of Ant-man, perfectly not confusing. 

But I'm pretty sure the film makers got confused, too, and they got it wrong. There were one too many upside down jumps.

 

[DireWolfSpirit]

2 hours ago, WarGalley said:

Sarcasm? I haven't seen it yet but I'm still not quite clear how they could level the playing field between Kong and Godzilla. Godzilla can shoot a nuclear laser from his mouth. Sure Kong can wield weapons.. but what weapons realistically exist at his size? And since he doesn't live in an equally sized scale jungle where he can climb trees and be more maneuverable in the environment, it should be no contest really.

You have to ask if that was sarcasm?

Yes it was sarcasm. The movie was foisted on us after Easter dinner by some sneaky children lol.

[dbunting]

9 hours ago, Mark Antony said:

Makes me wonder what people think they’re going to get when popping on one of these monster movies. I mean the movie is popcorn entertainment but it’s pretty much exactly what you would expect out of something called Godzilla vs Kong.

No, not really. It's worse than I expected and I had low expectations. I can appreciate a popcorn flick but it was worse

[DMC]

Watched Godzilla v Kong yesterday with my brother, pretty much the perfect Mystery Science Theater movie.  It's funny how in these type of movies otherwise good actors give laughable performances - almost like a sports team playing down to its competition.  I honestly wonder if they're directed that way.

[RumHam]

 

 

[Ran]

Rewatched Jackie Brown. It's the most mature and disciplined film Tarantino has or will ever make, and I appreciate that. Great cast, especially Robert Forster who entered a career renaissance due to his performance here, and an amazing soundtrack. While Pulp Fiction remains my favorite of Tarantino's films, Jackie Brown remains firmly in second place for me. 

[Mark Antony]

12 hours ago, dbunting said:

No, not really. It's worse than I expected and I had low expectations. I can appreciate a popcorn flick but it was worse

I don’t see it. It’s pretty much the definition of popcorn entertainment but fair enough. 

6 minutes ago, Ran said:

Rewatched Jackie Brown. It's the most mature and disciplined Tarantino has or will ever make, and I appreciate that. Great cast, especially Robert Forster who entered a career renaissance due to his performance here, and an amazing soundtrack. While Pulp Fiction remains my favorite of Tarantino's films, Jackie Brown remains firmly in second place for me. 

Never gets old to me.