Jump to content

Watch, Watched, Watching: The Shield lands on top


Veltigar

Recommended Posts

5 minutes ago, Veltigar said:

Curious about Better Call Saul, but I think I'll go for Justified first.

It's a good call I think. Justified is a very fast and satysfying watch (and you can't get enough Olyphant and Goggins). Better Call Saul is just the opposite, very slow burn, though no less satysfying, even before the final season.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

55 minutes ago, Veltigar said:

Ah, that's good to hear. I'll be taking a bit of a break from the world of Breaking Bad after I finish season 5, but I think the promise of more of that character will definitely bring me back to Better call Saul (especially since Saul is another character I have come to appreciate, so good to have those back).

 

The last stretch of 4-5 episodes of BB are something to behold.  

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

3 hours ago, Veltigar said:

Ah, that's good to hear. I'll be taking a bit of a break from the world of Breaking Bad after I finish season 5, but I think the promise of more of that character will definitely bring me back to Better call Saul (especially since Saul is another character I have come to appreciate, so good to have those back).

I'm a few episodes into season 5 and strangely enough it feels like

  Reveal hidden contents

the show has a lot more episodes to go than the 16 in season 5. It feels at this point as a sort of place holder season which would end with the next big bad to be revealed. Curious how they'll shift gears on this.

BCS also leans heavily into Mike. Slow burn as ever, but it's really great. 

As for villains, I think you've figured out who the villain in this story is. 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 hours ago, Veltigar said:

Agreed on The Terror, are they already on a third season? I remember the second one being a major letdown quality wise. Now that's always the risk with anthologies I guess.

That was a really odd case. I don't think anyone involved in season one worked on season two. Last I read AMC wanted to do a third season but they hadn't settled on an idea. 

I'm guessing they don't have the rights to Simmons' other horror stories, which is a shame. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

56 minutes ago, Aemon Stark said:

 

BCS also leans heavily into Mike. Slow burn as ever, but it's really great. 

As for villains, I think you've figured out who the villain in this story is. 

 

BCS is a slow burn but some slow parts are more acceptable than others.  I got pretty fed up with how much time they spent on Chuck and Jimmy and the heavy-handed Cain vs Abel.  A slow burn on Mike, Saul, Gus, Nacho and Hector is something I can watch all day.  Kim is a great character, and I even enjoy watching Howard except that he comes packaged up with the boring Hamlin McGill antagonism.  I was close to quitting during S3 but it improved in S4 (that’s all that Netflix has so far).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 minutes ago, Iskaral Pust said:

BCS is a slow burn but some slow parts are more acceptable than others.  I got pretty fed up with how much time they spent on Chuck and Jimmy and the heavy-handed Cain vs Abel.  A slow burn on Mike, Saul, Gus, Nacho and Hector is something I can watch all day.  Kim is a great character, and I even enjoy watching Howard except that he comes packaged up with the boring Hamlin McGill antagonism.  I was close to quitting during S3 but it improved in S4 (that’s all that Netflix has so far).

Agree with this. I get that his brother is an integral part of why Jimmy is the way he is, but they really dragged that part of the show out. I could watch a pure Mike show for 20 seasons however.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Iskaral Pust said:

BCS is a slow burn but some slow parts are more acceptable than others.  I got pretty fed up with how much time they spent on Chuck and Jimmy and the heavy-handed Cain vs Abel.  A slow burn on Mike, Saul, Gus, Nacho and Hector is something I can watch all day.  Kim is a great character, and I even enjoy watching Howard except that he comes packaged up with the boring Hamlin McGill antagonism.  I was close to quitting during S3 but it improved in S4 (that’s all that Netflix has so far).

I kinda agree, though I really enjoyed the later parts of their story. Also, spoilers. And yes, just let me watch some Salamancas and/or Tuco making supper and I'm good. 

39 minutes ago, RumHam said:

Every other episode is just Mike disassembling cars with no dialogue.

Works for me. He was perhaps my favourite on BB. And:

Spoiler

Of all the things Walt ever did, killing Mike was somehow the worst for me. On one hand, Mike kinda reminds me of my grandfather (right down to the kinds of cars he drives!), but also just drives home how stupid and destructive Walt is. Though Mike's final lines kinda make it better, "Shut the fuck up, and let me die in peace."

And just before: 

"We had a good thing, you stupid son of a bitch! We had Fring. We had a lab. We had everything we needed, and it all ran like clockwork. You could’ve shut your mouth, cooked, and made as much money as you ever needed. It was perfect. But, no, you just had to blow it up. You and your pride and your ego! You just had to be the man. If you’d done your job, known your place, we’d all be fine right now!"

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

13 minutes ago, Aemon Stark said:

I kinda agree, though I really enjoyed the later parts of their story. Also, spoilers. And yes, just let me watch some Salamancas and/or Tuco making supper and I'm good. 

Works for me. He was perhaps my favourite on BB. And:

  Hide contents

Of all the things Walt ever did, killing Mike was somehow the worst for me. On one hand, Mike kinda reminds me of my grandfather (right down to the kinds of cars he drives!), but also just drives home how stupid and destructive Walt is. Though Mike's final lines kinda make it better, "Shut the fuck up, and let me die in peace."

And just before: 

"We had a good thing, you stupid son of a bitch! We had Fring. We had a lab. We had everything we needed, and it all ran like clockwork. You could’ve shut your mouth, cooked, and made as much money as you ever needed. It was perfect. But, no, you just had to blow it up. You and your pride and your ego! You just had to be the man. If you’d done your job, known your place, we’d all be fine right now!"

 

I love Mike but that last part isn't really accurate. 

I mean it's true for Mike and Jessie, but Gus was going to kill Walt. also towards the end of the Fring operations Walt was out and not making any more money from it. Walt's conflict with Fring began because Fring wanted Jessie dead / was using kids in the drug trade and then had one killed. So I don't really fault Walt for that. 

Yes, at some point he should have just walked away and let it go. But if he shuts up and cooks early on Jessie is killed. If he walks away later l think Gus would have eventually had Walt killed.  

I'd love to get a Better Call Saul scene where Mike and Gus discuss the child dealer/murder thing. Seems like Mike should not have been ok with that.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

9 hours ago, Cas Stark said:

I loved the Chuck/Jimmy dynamic and somewhat feel like the show has never quite recovered from

Spoiler

Chuck's death. 

But, Lalo!  And more Mike will always be great.  I doubt I will ever rank it as better than BB.   

You should really spoiler tag that shit.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Watched Without Remorse on Amazon Prime, some of the fight scenes were okay but the story felt like it was going somewhere and then it finished abruptly. Such a waste.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Watched Ma Rainey's Black Bottom last night and thoroughly impressed. It's basically just a filmed play but I don't mind that in a film, once in a while, and the performances are outstanding all around. I mean, Davis and Boseman are incredible but all of the supporting cast are great too.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Watched Werner Herzog's Fitzcarraldo, loosely inspired by details from the life of the Peruvian rubber baron Carlos Fermin Fitzcarrald. This one stars Klaus Kinski as the eponymous Fitzcarraldo, a dreamer with a mad dream of building an opera house in the small city of Isquito in Peru so that Enrico Caruso and other great opera stars can perform there. I was raring to go into a lot more detail, because Herzog's and Kinski's collaborations (Aguirre, Nosferatu, Woyzeck, Cobra Verde) are legendary for their violent feuding (largely due to Kinski, who was diagnosed with schizophrenia and antisocial personality disorder at various points), but when I decided to see if anyone else had mentioned it on the forum I see @Veltigar watched in December and gave a very thorough rundown of it, including some great trivia. (Also agree with his assessment that Claudia Cardinale was very appealing in this, and her scenes with Kinski -- all too few -- really helped lend him a kind of lighthearted, charming energy that was rarely revealed in his other work.)

Anyways, recommended film. Not perfect, the pacing is a little overindulgent, but well-worth seeing. Especially for the scenes of their pulling a 320 ton steamship up a 40 degree slope -- 100% real, just a completely absurd thing to do and yet the fact that they did it is mindboggling. The real Fitzcarrald had a 30 ton steamboat transported... but in pieces, ported over, not dragged up a bloody hillside!

(There is a documentary from Les Blank that was made alongside the production, Burden of Dreams, which won the 1982 BAFTA for documentary. Besides showing just how crazy the project was, it also shows the start of production when Jason Robards and Mick Jagger were part of the cast, including a couple of scenes they filmed. Robards ended up getting dysentry with 40% of the production finished and had to drop out, ultimately leading to Kinski taking over, the film having to basically be reshot, and thus losing Jagger who had to go on tour with the Rolling Stones.)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Regarding Better Call Saul-

Jimmy's brother Chuck isn't it?

Anyways have met a person in real life that is just as batshit crazy. This person is a she that has a myriad of fake illnesses. Illness from frabics, illness from foods, fake and imagined bouts of lost sight, fake back problems and it all just goes on and on and on, she's even been caught faking falls and seizures.

Doctors have repeatedly told her there's no medical reason for all her claims, outside the one mental disorder of imagining the illnesses.

It really reminded me of the time they snuck the cellphone into court and Chuck had none of his imagined symptoms because he was unaware of its presence.

It is really a tragic and unpretty thing to behold, and there are people out in rl  like Chuck. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Finished season 2 of Solar Opposites last night.

Needless to say it still feels like discount Rick & Morty, but somehow this second season felt good... Save the finale imho - that I didn't like.
Like in season 1, the episode centered on the wall was pretty good.

I wouldn't say Solar Opposites is great, but it's still a decent, entertaining show, that every now and then lands a great moment.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Just finished season two of The Knick. The difference in quality between the two seasons is pretty apparent, but I did like some of the things they tried. That said, the ending is rather unsatisfying all around. I'd heavily recommend the first season though.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I watched Mamoru Hosoda's Wolf Children. He's very good. It's probably his best work, as the last of his movies (bar Digimon) that I'd not seen, at least on an emotional level. Plotwise it won't be for everyone seeing as it's more of a series of character-building vignettes and short episodes about a family growing up rather than a fully-formed arc, though there is a running thread of course.

I'm also continually amazed by Hosoda's use of place and space to aid character in animation. Obviously  that is a storyteller's tool in any case but from the way the geography of a tiny mud hut plays a key part in the character-storytelling in Boy and the Beast to using two completely different kinds of setting to signify two completely different approaches to emotional freedom here- he's a genius at that.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

Guest
This topic is now closed to further replies.
×
×
  • Create New...