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

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

I can never really discuss Skyfall fairly. It came out right around the election when I was working on a political campaign in 2012, and after we wrapped I didn't do shit for a few weeks. When I finally went to see it, after hearing about how amazing it was, I was rather let down. But what was really disappointing, and I've written about this in the Bond thread, is that the movie made clear the character was born as James Bond. I really think they missed there. It would have been so much better if they made it clear that James Bond was just a meaningless, faceless name attached to 007. 

[Ghostlydragon]

1 hour ago, polishgenius said:

 

 

I quite like Doomsday even though it is cheesy, but one should definitely watch the Impossible Planet two-parter, The Girl in the Fireplace, and School Reunion.

Also Love & Monsters but only to hate.

 

 

In hindsight, honestly, RTD's run is better than Moffat's run coz yeah it suffered from some bad humour (especially early on) and being a bit unimaginative with its big threats, at least RTD knew how to finish his plots. Season 5 is great but s6 is already running into trouble despite some cracking episodes and after that it just gets into an increasingly embarassing routine of setting up ideas then just abandoning them midway or ruining them in ways that makes no sense. Moffat's dialogue and humour is better than RTD's and he upped the production value but his story control is shockingly bad.

The only issue I have with RTD is that his finales got too big. S1 works perfectly because it is set in a future that nobody will ever go back to. S2 works fine and so does 4 despite 4 having a ridiculous reset button but I always hated s3 because there is no coming back from what happens and they take a very bad way to do it. Moffat tones it down in a way but I think Rusty is worse.

Tbh you don't need the end of the universe to tell a good story. Capaldi probably has the best record for that.

[Luzifer's right hand]

Watched the first eps of Invincible today. A good adaption so far. I forgot how incredible graphic the violence is though. 

[HexMachina]

22 hours ago, Mindwalker said:

 

I'm not sure, I think I'd find it depressing right now.

Maybe I should try The Wire?

As for Dr. Who, I would have loved it as a child! (And maybe I did watch classic Who, I don't remember.) I'm watching ep 5 now, and all in all, I find it mildly entertaining, but burping bins and farting aliens are just not my knd of humor. And I somehow can't get interested in the main characters, or Victorian "ghosts", or any of the aliens. Of those first eps, I liked the second one best.  Love the intro, though, and it was nice to see the actor of Dickens again. He was on of the better parts of "Four Marriages And A Funeral". Oh, and I might watch the first eps of the current doc, if just because some fans freaked out when a woman was announced.

It's really hard for me to find something that suits me right now. I watched the first episode of Parks and Recreation, and while it was funny, I also started to get annoyed/ frustrated with the protagonist (and her "helpful" co-workers) already.

I could finally catch up with OITNB (after s5) or AD (after s1), or try this show about an AU of the moon landing... I don't know.

Someone recommended Person of Interest to me, but said that s1 would probably be a bit of a struggle. Lays some groundwork, though, so shouldn't be skipped.

 

Parks and Recreation improves so much over time. I don't hate season 1 quite as much as most do but you definitely don't miss anything by starting with Season 2. I just love every character on that show so much.

Please don't bother with OitNB. Its pretty much the opposite of Parks and Rec. Strong start that rapidly descended into something awful. I don't know if the last season was 'good' or if it was just such a breath of relief after the terrible season before.

I finished Schitt's Creek last night, I was really pleasantly surprised how much I enjoyed it. Moira's fashions and wigs were a particular highlight.

Not sure what to watch next, I am in the mood for comedy so any suggestions are welcom

[Mark Antony]

Gonna watch Godzilla vs Kong tonight. Hopefully the human stuff isn’t so shitty it ruins it

[JGP]

3 hours ago, Mark Antony said:

Gonna watch Godzilla vs Kong tonight. Hopefully the human stuff isn’t so shitty it ruins it

The monster stuff isn't so hot either... 

[Mark Antony]

2 hours ago, JEORDHl said:

The monster stuff isn't so hot either... 

Hmm I’ve read some good reviews so I guess we will see

[RumHam]

HBO max is so weird. I finished watching Godzilla and it recommended me other movies after, but the list didn't include either sequel even though both are on the service. 

[Veltigar]

I'm at episode 2 of season 2 of the Shield. Holy fuck  

Spoiler

The new Mexican villain is scary and I liked Tio, so the way they went about setting this up was great but when the foot dropped and Vick started to let loose... That's some dark shit man. This is one of the most brutal scenes I have ever seen and this is only episode 2

I wonder how the villain will retaliate. You don't do that to a child-raping psychopath without having to watch your back and that of your missing family constantly

 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

4 hours ago, Mark Antony said:

Hmm I’ve read some good reviews so I guess we will see

Same, and they're basically all the same. IF you go into the movie with the mindset of overthinking it, you probably won't like it, but if you're here just for the dumb monster movie, you'll probably like. Sounds like they learned from the mistake of barely having the monsters in the movie.

[Martini Sigil]

Godzilla vs. Kong .... the humans were indeed, simply abysmal... One particularly awful sub-plot was cringe worthy from the start until the end (you'll know which one)... good fights though... no stop action and it wasn't dark, and there was a clear winner... so at least they didn;t cop out.... overall it was reminiscent of Bob Probert and Tie Domi 

[Mark Antony]

1 hour ago, Martini Sigil said:

Godzilla vs. Kong .... the humans were indeed, simply abysmal... One particularly awful sub-plot was cringe worthy from the start until the end (you'll know which one)... good fights though... no stop action and it wasn't dark, and there was a clear winner... so at least they didn;t cop out.... overall it was reminiscent of Bob Probert and Tie Domi 

yeah the Millie Bobbie Brown storyline was so so bad. I didn’t hate the humans in Kongs part but that could have been trimmed a bit too. The fights were mostly enjoyable though and I was also glad there was a clear winner. Can’t believe they cast Lance Reddick and gave him one line 

  

 

[Mindwalker]

On 3/30/2021 at 11:09 PM, HelenaExMachina said:

Parks and Recreation improves so much over time. I don't hate season 1 quite as much as most do but you definitely don't miss anything by starting with Season 2. I just love every character on that show so much.

Please don't bother with OitNB. Its pretty much the opposite of Parks and Rec. Strong start that rapidly descended into something awful. I don't know if the last season was 'good' or if it was just such a breath of relief after the terrible season before.

 

Parks & Recs s2 is really better! Ep 4 was my highlight so far (practise date & drunken visit to the guy).

As for OitNB, yes, it got worse after the first couple of seasons (and Gods, did Piper annoy me!), with s5 being the worst. But I think I want to know where they all end up (ok, most of them in jail, obviously), particualrly Red and Alex.

[Corvinus85]

Godzilla vs Kong was enjoyable shlock. The big fights were good. There is one premise that if you accept that, everything else is acceptable, too.

Spoiler

Hollow Earth and inverted gravity.

The dumbest human part for me was when Kong lady found out that the little girl could communicate with Kong. This after she spent years on the Truman-show Skull Island studying Kong with the little girl.

 

[mormont]

6 hours ago, Mindwalker said:

Gods, did Piper annoy me!)

This is the basic problem with OitNB - the protagonist is by far the least interesting and most annoying character. You could basically write her out after season 1 and the series would improve.

[Ran]

To get the taste of Zack Snyder's Justice League out of my system, I watched two very different films:

Ingmar Bergman's The Virgin Spring (Jungfrukällan), winner of the 1961 Golden Globe and Academy Award for Best Foreign Picture. Bergman would later become rather disdainful of it, but he was a man of very strong, usually very negative, opinions about his own work so we'll pay him no mind. Based on an old Swedish medieval ballad, it tells the story of what happens when the beautiful, beloved, spoiled only daughter of a wealthy farming family is sent out to deliver candles to the nearest church, the brutal fate that befalls her, and how her family -- particularly the father, played by a young, granite-faced Max von Sydow who is depicted by the camera as a veritable giant (to be fair, Sydow was almost 2 meters tall) -- deals with it. It's very Bergman, long passages of silence, the camera following the characters as they move inevitably towards their destiny. There is a moment that might be one of magical realism, as pagan religion is brought into things early on... and there's definitely a miraculous moment towards the end, as Christian religion is also a big feature.  

Spoiler

The ballad it is based on is "Töre's daughters in Wänge", and involves three daughters who are set upon by outlaws who behead them, steal their garments, and later unwittingly try to sell them back to their parents. Töre kills two of them when his wife realizes, but the third is questioned... and Töre comes to learn that the three men were his own sons that he had put out from the house years earlier. In penance, he promised to build a church, which is the folk history behind the building of a 12th century church in Kärna (curiously, this is rather far away from Vänge).

The ballad is found recorded throughout the Nordic world, and apparently it's the source of the Scottish ballad "Babylon" about an outlaw coming across three maids, killing each in turn when they refuse to marry them, until the last threatens that her brother or brothers will avenge her... only for the outlaw to realize that he is the brother in question, and promptly commits suicide.

Then Wim Wender's Paris, Texas, which took the Palme d'Ore at Cannes. The pared-down, melancholy screenplay is from the great Sam Shepard -- a perfect fit for Wenders's sensibilities. It stars Harry Dean Stanton, who is introduced in a striking image of a bearded man in a brown suit and a red trucker's cap walking through endless desert. Stanton spends the first half hour completely silent as his character's brother (played by Dean Stockwell) finds him and brings him home to Los Angeles. It's a meditative piece, a film about the idea of America, in a way, as told through Wender's imagery of vast open deserts and vivid, crowded cities. It's more particularly the story of someone who vanished for years and then returns uncertain of his place and his past, and tries to grab hold of the things he lost only to find that he can't -- and shouldn't -- hold on to them.

Stanton's terrific, especially in the long speech near the end. Nastassja Kinski appears quite late, and is terrific (and, jeez, gorgeous as well -- forgot how strikingly beautiful she was.)

[williamjm]

I watched the first season of Amazon's Jack Ryan TV show from a couple of years ago. I thought it was good without really standing out in any way, this sort of story has been told a lot in the past. I think the highlight was Wendell Pierce as Jack's boss who did tend to steal every scene he was in. I'll probably try the second season at some point but I'm not in any hurry.

[maarsen]

22 hours ago, Veltigar said:

I'm at episode 2 of season 2 of the Shield. Holy fuck  

  Reveal hidden contents

The new Mexican villain is scary and I liked Tio, so the way they went about setting this up was great but when the foot dropped and Vick started to let loose... That's some dark shit man. This is one of the most brutal scenes I have ever seen and this is only episode 2

I wonder how the villain will retaliate. You don't do that to a child-raping psychopath without having to watch your back and that of your missing family constantly

 

Well there are quite a few Holy Fuck moments yet to come.  It was a great series.

[ithanos]

2 hours ago, williamjm said:

I watched the first season of Amazon's Jack Ryan TV show from a couple of years ago. I thought it was good without really standing out in any way, this sort of story has been told a lot in the past. I think the highlight was Wendell Pierce as Jack's boss who did tend to steal every scene he was in. I'll probably try the second season at some point but I'm not in any hurry.

Urm I would stop there. It would sully any enjoyment of that first season if you watched the second.

--------

Godzilla vs Kong, on a big cinema screen with booming sound, is a 10/10 - whether its the titular characters vs each other, vs giant ships, vs giant flora or fauna, or vs skyscrapers which seem to rebuild themselves before the next scene.   

However, as mentioned by others, attention to anything smaller than huge (IE: annoying humans) is a real distraction. Fortunately its not as bad as it was in the previous installations, but its there. Admittedly, I could watch Rebecca Hall for a minute, and maybe also Alex Skarsgard for a second, but the others I had absolutely no interest in - particularly the trio from out West. So that brings the experience down a tad. If I had not watched this in cinema I'd have given it 6.5/10, but in cinema its a solid 8/10. I came to watch the big monsters and this delivers on that front.  

I recommend seeing this in cinema if you can. If not, then move your couch a little closer to that big screen TV and make sure the sub-woofer is on, or shuffle your chair so you're a head-span away from your monitor and use a good set of headphones. If your only option is a smartphone, then just re-watch the trailer and let your imagination fill in the rest.

 

[HexMachina]

I'm watching Hollywood, the Ryan Murphy show from last year. Its not a must see but it is decent, and I could watch Patti LuPone in anything so I was the perfect target audience here