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Watch, Watched, Watching: The Shield lands on top


Veltigar

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Watched Gillo Pontecorvo's Battle of Algiers (La bataille d'Alger) for the first time. Amazing, remarkable film. Parts of it were so convincing as actual newsreel footage, and the whole thing has a cinema verité style that's tremendously effective. How Pontecorvo pulled it off -- particularly the huge scenes of protests and riots  -- is beyond me. It's a very influential film, in many ways -- allegedly embraced by militant resistance groups such as the IRA and the PLO as a guide to guerrilla warfare, screened by the Pentagon in 2004 to spark discussions of the urban warfare situation they were mired in, and definitely an influence on war movies that came after.

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I've gotten up to the end of season 4 of my rewatch of The Shield.  Haven't been able to bring myself to rewatching season 5 yet though.  100% because of @Mexal's spoiler.  Really like the upgrade to high def though.

Finished rewatching The Last Kingdom as my workout show the past couple of weeks, and have started rewatching Turn for that now.

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11 hours ago, Ran said:

Watched Gillo Pontecorvo's Battle of Algiers (La bataille d'Alger) for the first time. Amazing, remarkable film. Parts of it were so convincing as actual newsreel footage, and the whole thing has a cinema verité style that's tremendously effective. How Pontecorvo pulled it off -- particularly the huge scenes of protests and riots  -- is beyond me. It's a very influential film, in many ways -- allegedly embraced by militant resistance groups such as the IRA and the PLO as a guide to guerrilla warfare, screened by the Pentagon in 2004 to spark discussions of the urban warfare situation they were mired in, and definitely an influence on war movies that came after.

First bolded: I've rewatched this regularly over the years, so, obviously, :agree:

Second bolded: did it really take the Pentagon until 2004 to notice this film, or what, one wonders.  The answers may be Out There on the innernezes -- but I have a second vaccination appointment to get to! This film has always been in the filmographies and syllabi since its release in 1966, and it was watched over and over back then by all the racism and anti-war resistance groups, so the FBI at least, with all its infiltrators, certainly had it flagged.

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I'm sure it has been shown before at academies and war colleges and so on, but the 2004 screening was noted because of the particularly relevant context at the time.

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20 hours ago, RedEyedGhost said:

I've gotten up to the end of season 4 of my rewatch of The Shield.  Haven't been able to bring myself to rewatching season 5 yet though.  100% because of @Mexal's spoiler.  Really like the upgrade to high def though.

Killed me! 
 

On another note, I didn’t hate Snyder’s Justice League. Pleasantly surprised :dunno:

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11 hours ago, Leap said:

remember watching this as a young teen with friends. I honestly don't remember anything about the film other than we almost certainly ruined it for anyone sat nearby who wanted a serious watch, which we did not expect. Mild levels of guilt.

Same 

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Continuing that John Carpenter discussion I started watching They Live as it was one I don’t think I I’d ever properly seen. 
 

Like a lot of Carpenter stuff it really does walk a fine line between campy fun and utter shit.. but in this case really does fall over into B movie schlock rubbish. 
 

What was interesting however is just how much the conspiracy theories in the movie seem like everyday discussion these days.. almost like half of it is accepted as fact!

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15 hours ago, Leap said:

Speaking of which, it's weird that Godzilla got top billing when it was very much a Kong film.

Obviously Godzilla must have a better agent.

I suppose it is possible that there is something in the contract the film-makers signed when getting the license to use Godzilla that he would have top-billing in any film they made.

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Working through Best Picture nominees, I watched Mank last night on Netflix. Talk about Oscar bait. If you like throwback movies or movies about throwback movies, you'll love it. Personally I thought the acting was top notch. Seyfried disappeared so much into her character that I literally didn't even know it was her until the credits rolled. This movie shouldn't win any of the major awards, but I understand the nominations. 

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4 hours ago, Heartofice said:

Continuing that John Carpenter discussion I started watching They Live as it was one I don’t think I I’d ever properly seen. 
 

Like a lot of Carpenter stuff it really does walk a fine line between campy fun and utter shit.. but in this case really does fall over into B movie schlock rubbish. 
 

What was interesting however is just how much the conspiracy theories in the movie seem like everyday discussion these days.. almost like half of it is accepted as fact!

They Live is a great movie. You shut your fucking mouth! 

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I finished The Shield last night. Glad that I have finally been able to watch this series, as it is definitely one of the most entertaining series that I have ever seen. Particularly impressive is its consistency throughout. In the entire run of seven seasons, there is only one episode that I can recall that really didn't connect with me (the prequel episode in season two or three).

I was also rather unimpressed by the first stretch of episodes in season 7, but that righted itself in the end with that final episode which packed one hell of an wallop at the end. Both Walton Goggins and Michael Chiklis turned in two of the best performances that I have ever seen in that last episode. 

Spoiler

What I loved was how their performances did a sort of vault-face on my feelings for the characters. I have never particularly liked Shane, always thought he was just a prick and an idiot (in my defense, he was) but what befell him in the end really made me sympathetic to his plight. Which I didn't think I'd ever say, since I didn't like his character, loved Lem's character and in general do not have much sympathy for people killing their wife and children.

The pathos of his final performance, coupled with that excellent letter CCH Pounder read to Vic was really mindbogglingly well coordinated to switch my sympathies. I really believe that Shane, despite all the awful shit he's pulled over the years, is actually not a bad guy. He just fell in thrall to the devil and followed him to hell.

Now that I have mentioned the devil, let's turn our attention to Vic. With him, the exact opposite occurred. One o the thing that has greatly intrigued me about his character is that he's so obviously a bad guy, but yet I couldn't help but root for him. Every messed up thing he did, every time someone figured him out, I wanted him to escape, to out wit them and remain this sort of vigilante like presence on the street. 

That changed as soon as he betrayed Ronny and got his full immunity. That confession scene of him... that was just hard to watch. He's kept such a tight lid on the truth, pushed it down and forced everyone to believe in the myths he spun to justify his crimes, but when he lays it all out on the table it becomes so obvious how wrong I was to root for him. I'm not sure whether I'm not going overboard with this statement, as we have seen serial killers, drug kingpin and cartel hit men, but I feel like the show zooms in on Mackey in the end and basically tells us that he's the greatest villain of the show (apart from cat-killer Dutch of course, he's clearly worse than Hitler). The cure that is worse than the cancer so the speak. 

That just blew me away to be honest. I saw the Shane ending coming from a mile away, but i was not expecting the show would end on such a philosophically dark tone. If I had had to wager money on it, I would have put my money on a violent ending in which Vic stops the cartel boss by attacking him and going out in a blaze of glory. If that hadn't been the case, than I would have put my money on some random perp shooting him down during a standard bust. 

Safe to say that I was happily surprised by the final resolution; As dark and messed up as it was, it was deep. What does surprise me is that they have never revived this series. Vic had his wings clipped at the end, but when he picked up his gun and went outside I could see him basically turn into the Punisher or setting himself up as a drug kingpin for real this time. They could have made a good film out of that I reckon.

I'd be curious to see what you all thought of the ending and what would happen with Vic after he left his new office?

There is a lot more I could say about the series, but it has left me with some conflicting emotions. I find it very hard to categorize. It's clearly a transitional show, with a lot of similarities with older forms of TV. If I hadn't binged this, those more traditional elements would have frustrated me I believe. Dutch's love life or Danny's kids or Julien struggles with married life are all things that didn't really interest me. The episodes were those issues are front and center I would not have cared for.

I also wonder how much of this was planned in advance. I feel like up until season 4 this is quite a traditional animal, like the highest incarnation of those old series but they then shift gears with 

Spoiler

the assassination of Lem, who did such a great job as the moral compass of our troublesome foursome. After he was gone, they really went off the deep end.

If the show has one flaw apart from its soapier elements, I would guess that I'd put the villains forward. Season two had by far the best villain in Armadillo. Antwon wasn't bad either, but I feel like I sometimes missed a magnetic presence in the antagonist role.

it's a minor flaw though, as we all know who the real villains are in this.This is the cop show equivalent of Paradise Lost after all. I'd warmly recommend this show to anyone who hasn't seen it yet, it's definitely a must watch. 

4 hours ago, BigFatCoward said:

Apart from F4 and that weird show in Vegas, has Chiklis done anything since the shield? 

That blew my mind when I first realized Ben from F4 and The Shield where played by the same guy. If it weren't for IMDB I'd never have realized.

I don't think he's done much of note apart from the things that have been mentioned so far. I hope for him he's had a lot of success in the theater, because he really does deserve the love. At least he can be happy about this:

Spoiler

Comic book writing legend and icon Stan Lee quoted Chiklis' performances as The Thing/Ben Grimm in both Fantastic Four (2005) and Fantastic 4: Rise of the Silver Surfer (2007) as being his favorite of all the Marvel Comic characters to be adapted onto live film.

Seeing how Chiklis himself said that Ben Grimm was his dream role, the above is kind of neat.

And on a bright note, at least he's not in jail for murdering his wife. Not all cast members of The Shield are able to say that :huh:

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