Watch Watched Watching: Indie Art Cinema Wave #__?

[Kalbear]

23 minutes ago, Zorral said:

Well, out the frame, in about week maybe he falls out of the outrigger, nobody stops coz they're in the Zone, and he gets eaten by a shark.

It's really not about comeuppance for Quinn. It's the show both saying 'exploitation of Hawai'i was bad' and 'wow this place is awesome you should totally exploit it' that bugs. Quinn's escape is shown as a big triumph, and per the show creator that was intentional. And hell, he's the Haole there too - the guy bought a house in Kauai and isn't native and is fucking things up there himself, so I suspect it's kind of trying to justify his own actions. 

But it sucked, and I don't see why Quinn should get a fairy tale ending that justifies the rich coming and getting cool canoe trips for free as being so totally awesome - at least not without some real soul searching and indication that that part also sucked for the canoers. 

[Zorral]

1 hour ago, Kaligator said:

at least not without some real soul searching and indication that that part also sucked for the canoers. 

U R kidding, rite?  This is TV! Plus, as the Zahn character says, anybody who's got it isn't going to give it away.  Ya, color me cynical like that.  The age of saints who give all their money to the poor and walk with Christ has long left the earth, if there ever were any.  But then there were, say, Hannah Arendt.  And there's Greta Thunberg.  I think you are right though, maybe in a different way: the show would have been a whole lot more interesting if that is what happened -- Quinn meeting an island environmental activist after he's begun groping his way there after seeing the whale sounding that first morning waking on the beach.  These things do happen, even to rich people.  Then we could have some soul searching, even on TV?  I dunno.  I'm not arguing with you. I'm just seeing it as the show saw it and did it.  Not that this matters either, what I see, etc. because, ya, you know, TV.  OTOH in this pandemic TV has been keeping me from going crazy.

[Deadlines? What Deadlines?]

The Gentlemen: Slightly better than 3.6 Roentgen. I laughed at some parts. I liked the (literal) narrative format used in the first two acts. Collin Farrel is hilarious. Charlie Hunnam does a good job. 

Spoiler

I especially liked the subtle, "You need to see the sequel" talk while the character is literally standing in front of a poster for Guy Ritchie's Man from U.N.C.L.E.. I've grown to like that movie over the years. I'd be down for a sequel to that before I watched The Gentlemen 2.

The Midnight Sky: Clooney's apocalyptic sci fi movie. I liked it. Very "televisual" cinematography but otherwise really good.  

[3CityApache]

Watched Free Guy yesterday. Liked it, it was genuinely funny. I guess you just can't go wrong with Ryan Reynolds and Taika Waititi as main opponents. It was actually a really pleasant surprise, as I have a rather gloomy experience with video games movies.

[Veltigar]

I was finally able to finish the second season of Friday Night Lights. Not going to lie, it was rough to get there. I get why this second season is compared so often to Justified season five as the one season in an otherwise great series that isn’t up to par.

The advantage fortunately is that it’s clear sailing from here. I have almost finished season three and while it doesn’t reach the heights of that first season it’s just nice to see a show about some normal people living in what comes comparatively close to the real world.

Season two was let down mostly by one storyline which departed that focus on real life and slid into soap territory 

Spoiler

Naturally talking about Landry and Tyra murdering a rapist and walking away scot free after hiding the body… and that in Texas.  

It’s so strange, I like Meth Damon as Landry. Tyra and he are some of my favourite characters, but in both season two and three they are stuck with some of the worst storylines. 

I am curious what the future brings for this series as I read that some of the regulars left the series (they can’t stay in high school forever) between season three and four.
 

I already feel that some characters are difficult to replace. In the middle of season three 

Spoiler

Smash Williams gets to go to college. I liked that that character got a happy ending, but I miss his brash, fast-talking presence.

 

[DMC]

1 hour ago, Veltigar said:

I am curious what the future brings for this series as I read that some of the regulars left the series (they can’t stay in high school forever) between season three and four.

Yeah there's a big change in Season 4 - and it doesn't really have to do with characters graduating.  I believe it's set up at the end of Season 3 if memory serves?  To clarify what I'm talking about - 

Spoiler

Kyle Chandler gets replaced as coach - by a guy named Aikman!!! - and takes a job at the "wrong side of the tracks" East Dillon High.

 

[Annara Snow]

Started watching Halt and Catch Fire on TV because it happened to be on it and I had heard good things about it earlier, and I was hooked pretty much instantly. It's such a good show, and so addictive, I'm glad I'm now on my vacation so I can binge it and watch a few episodes a day. I love all the main characters (no matter how messy and flawed they are... or rather because of it). The acting is great, the writing and music are so good, too.

How did this show not get much more popular? (It should also have had heaps of Emmy wins and nomin ations if there was any justice, but I already knew Emmys have little to do with actual quality, so that's beside the point.) Someone on Twitter says t was poor promotion, because AMC was too focused on the trainwreck that is TWD. The network loves those zombies. 

[Ran]

@Annara Snow

The first season was saddled with a lot of Mad Men comparisons, which did it no favors. It's a miracle AMC stuck with it, though, as the 2nd season was even better than the first.

[Annara Snow]

16 minutes ago, Ran said:

@Annara Snow

The first season was saddled with a lot of Mad Men comparisons, which did it no favors. It's a miracle AMC stuck with it, though, as the 2nd season was even better than the first.

I noticed the superficial Mad Men similarities, but unlike Mad Men, which I could just never get into or make myself really care about any of the characters (I know that it's a good show, but I guess some shows just never really click for some people), I was instantly hooked on Halt and Catch Fire.

[Mexal]

2 minutes ago, Annara Snow said:

I noticed the superficial Mad Men similarities, but unlike Mad Men, which I could just never get into or make myself really care about any of the characters (I know that it's a good show, but I guess some shows just never really click for some people), I was instantly hooked on Halt and Catch Fire.

Yea, I was too but no one watched it sadly. To Ran's point, the 2-4th seasons are better than the 1st. There is a shift in focus in the 2nd season that really elevated the show.

[Annara Snow]

5 minutes ago, Mexal said:

Yea, I was too but no one watched it sadly. To Ran's point, the 2-4th seasons are better than the 1st. There is a shift in focus in the 2nd season that really elevated the show.

I know, I'm midway through season 2. Season 1 was great, and season 2 has been even better so far.

[Zorral]

Dropping tomorrow:

https://www.vulture.com/article/the-chair-netflix-series-review-sandra-oh.html#_ga=2.72265296.2102347235.1629394587-924447837.1629394587

Need something to watch as well as re-watching all of The Last Kingdom, which I started to do last night.  Golly, that first season, from the very first scene of the very first episode, is so very good and high quality on every level.  Just as with the first watches, again, once I begin, I just want to keep going and going.  This was the best binge watching there ever was, for someone with my tastes and sensibilities.  I am aware, of course, once size doesn't fit all, and this didn't / doesn't work for every viewer as it has for me.

Anyway, I'll be ready for the final season, whenever it arrives.  My goodness how young the characters were, and the actors who played them, back when the first season was shot to be released in 2015.  2015, how long ago that was!  Our last book was published, we were still going to Cuba, Obama was still POTUS and there was no pandemic.  We've all aged as much as Uhtred and Brida -- even Beocca, Aleswith and Alfred, in these 7 + years, and so has the planet, and as much for them, for us all so much has changed. But from the first moments we meet them all in the first and second episodes they make a profound imprint on us as characters.  It's lovely meet them again.

 

[Veltigar]

On 8/19/2021 at 12:44 AM, DMC said:

Yeah there's a big change in Season 4 - and it doesn't really have to do with characters graduating.  I believe it's set up at the end of Season 3 if memory serves?  To clarify what I'm talking about - 

  Reveal hidden contents

Kyle Chandler gets replaced as coach - by a guy named Aikman!!! - and takes a job at the "wrong side of the tracks" East Dillon High.

 

That was a real shocker. Can’t believe they did that to coach.

I’m up to season 5 now, I have been enjoying it a lot more than season 2 obviously since I binged two seasons worth of content in about two days. 

I have enjoyed most new characters, but there are a few plotlines that I do not enjoy as much as I’d like

Spoiler

So far I think Tim Riggins and Landry have been done dirty by the show. These are still great characters played by likeable stars but they never catch a break in the story unfortunately.

The worst storyline by a mile is everything involving Julie Taylor. She’s a terrible character and a rather mediocre actress. She makes me cringe most of the time that she’s on screen. 

 

[Caligula_K3]

On 8/19/2021 at 1:51 PM, Zorral said:

Dropping tomorrow:

https://www.vulture.com/article/the-chair-netflix-series-review-sandra-oh.html#_ga=2.72265296.2102347235.1629394587-924447837.1629394587

Need something to watch as well as re-watching all of The Last Kingdom, which I started to do last night.  Golly, that first season, from the very first scene of the very first episode, is so very good and high quality on every level.  Just as with the first watches, again, once I begin, I just want to keep going and going.  This was the best binge watching there ever was, for someone with my tastes and sensibilities.  I am aware, of course, once size doesn't fit all, and this didn't / doesn't work for every viewer as it has for me.

Anyway, I'll be ready for the final season, whenever it arrives.  My goodness how young the characters were, and the actors who played them, back when the first season was shot to be released in 2015.  2015, how long ago that was!  Our last book was published, we were still going to Cuba, Obama was still POTUS and there was no pandemic.  We've all aged as much as Uhtred and Brida -- even Beocca, Aleswith and Alfred, in these 7 + years, and so has the planet, and as much for them, for us all so much has changed. But from the first moments we meet them all in the first and second episodes they make a profound imprint on us as characters.  It's lovely meet them again.

 

I've recently been watching this series for the first time - I'm up to the middle of Season 4 now. It surprised me how good it was. I'd read the first four or five books over a decade ago and always found them to be fun but generally forgettable; the show was much better at drawing me in and getting me invested in the characters. I had some issues in early season 1, especially with the character of Uhtred, but the actor gets a lot better at playing him and the character becomes less idiotic over time, which is nice.

Though it is sometimes silly how much everything and everyone in the show revolves around Uhtred. I know that's a holdover from the books and their POV structure, but...

As for Halt and Catch Fire, I really didn't like most of season 1; I stuck with it because everyone was telling me how good it became. And they were right. Season 2 was great, 3 was even better, and 4 is one of my favourite television seasons ever. Some shows that I love take a while to find their footing, but I've never seen a show go up in quality so drastically.

[Zorral]

4 hours ago, Caligula_K3 said:

he character of Uhtred, but the actor gets a lot better at playing him and the character becomes less idiotic over time, which is nice

Ya, Uhtred is a hot-headed, super arrogant kid in season 1.  It takes a whole lot of hard knocks to teach some patience and common sense. 

Spoiler

Particularly the that endless time of enslavement did a great deal for teaching him serious life lessons. It wasn't just a short period either, and in both the books and the show we feel how endless and hopeless the felt for him too.  At the same time his hard-headedness about fulfilling oaths, thus wanting to be careful as to whom and what he swears to, his loyalty, once given ... at least to men, not always to women ... gets him loyalty, respect, admiration and even deep affection in return which helps him escape slavery.

He always had super fighting skills and cleverness and strategic sense, but he was so impatient, he didn't THINK. Which the show series does a terrific job of showing us thematically as comparison and contrast of Uhtred and Alfred. Alfred may not be the military warrior sort that Uhtred is, but Alfred does THINK, and he reads and he writes -- which Uhtred has to learn too. They both have a dreadfully prickly sense of what is owed to them, which creates trouble life-long for them both.  Each is as hard-headed as the other.

As a sequential re-watch (I have rewatched each of the first three seasons before the new one was released but didn't do this kind of rewatch before) is having all this jump out at me, presumably when I get to the parts I don't like, such as that horrible Barbie Doll sorceress, they will jump out all the more too.

That's what I love about this show and never expected: this realization of this kind of relationship, which makes such sense both historically and dramatically.  There are real consequences and real, serious and significant matters at stake in this time and place and these people are involved in them, are even making them.  A huge difference between historical fiction per se, and 'historical fantasy' -- because, even as with the matters of Britain of Alfred's day, all of us, at least in the UK and the US and Canada are affected to some degree -- if only the language we speak -- by their choices and what they believe or don't believe.

I have read all the titles in the book series, as they were published.  I think the show is better.  Particularly the middle books, which tended to sag some.

[Corvinus85]

6 hours ago, Zorral said:

Ya, Uhtred is a hot-headed, super arrogant kid in season 1.  It takes a whole lot of hard knocks to teach some patience and common sense. 

  Hide contents

Particularly the that endless time of enslavement did a great deal for teaching him serious life lessons. It wasn't just a short period either, and in both the books and the show we feel how endless and hopeless the felt for him too.  At the same time his hard-headedness about fulfilling oaths, thus wanting to be careful as to whom and what he swears to, his loyalty, once given ... at least to men, not always to women ... gets him loyalty, respect, admiration and even deep affection in return which helps him escape slavery.

He always had super fighting skills and cleverness and strategic sense, but he was so impatient, he didn't THINK. Which the show series does a terrific job of showing us thematically as comparison and contrast of Uhtred and Alfred. Alfred may not be the military warrior sort that Uhtred is, but Alfred does THINK, and he reads and he writes -- which Uhtred has to learn too. They both have a dreadfully prickly sense of what is owed to them, which creates trouble life-long for them both.  Each is as hard-headed as the other.

As a sequential re-watch (I have rewatched each of the first three seasons before the new one was released but didn't do this kind of rewatch before) is having all this jump out at me, presumably when I get to the parts I don't like, such as that horrible Barbie Doll sorceress, they will jump out all the more too.

That's what I love about this show and never expected: this realization of this kind of relationship, which makes such sense both historically and dramatically.  There are real consequences and real, serious and significant matters at stake in this time and place and these people are involved in them, are even making them.  A huge difference between historical fiction per se, and 'historical fantasy' -- because, even as with the matters of Britain of Alfred's day, all of us, at least in the UK and the US and Canada are affected to some degree -- if only the language we speak -- by their choices and what they believe or don't believe.

I have read all the titles in the book series, as they were published.  I think the show is better.  Particularly the middle books, which tended to sag some.

I found that the last season dipped in quality quite a bit, but maybe there were budget restrictions. The books show the steady development of the kingdom of England by moving the action further up north or east. But the show seems unable to provide newer locations, constantly reverting back to Winchester.

[Zorral]

20 minutes ago, Corvinus85 said:

constantly reverting back to Winchester.

This is the Saxon Tales of the Last Kingdom, which is Wessex, and Winchester is its political center.  Ultimately it's not the tale of Uhtred but of Wessex and the dream of making one England from out of it.  Even though we are getting the tale via Uhtred, who was instrumental to that.

 

[DMC]

23 hours ago, Veltigar said:

Spoiler

 

So far I think Tim Riggins and Landry have been done dirty by the show. These are still great characters played by likeable stars but they never catch a break in the story unfortunately.

The worst storyline by a mile is everything involving Julie Taylor. She’s a terrible character and a rather mediocre actress. She makes me cringe most of the time that she’s on screen. 

 

 

Spoiler

With Riggins, well, I wasn't a big fan of what they were doing with him in the last two seasons but the character was at a point where it was hard to come up with interesting storylines for him anyway.  Landry, eh, I was never as much of a Landry fan as others were.  

As for Julie, if you're referring to the storyline with her and the college TA, yeah, that's just the worst.

 

[Corvinus85]

50 minutes ago, Zorral said:

This is the Saxon Tales of the Last Kingdom, which is Wessex, and Winchester is its political center.  Ultimately it's not the tale of Uhtred but of Wessex and the dream of making one England from out of it.  Even though we are getting the tale via Uhtred, who was instrumental to that.

 

Funny enough, you can argue that in the final book Northumbria is the last kingdom.  

And my point, Wessex becomes more secure as England develops and grows stronger. There shouldn't be yet another surprise assault on it like in season 1.

[Deadlines? What Deadlines?]

Finally watched GvK. Man, they missed the boat.

Godzilla and Kong: Skull Island were both great. Gozilla: KotM wasn't good. Reshoots, blah, blah...

GvK should have been an example of pure visual story telling. The production values were great; good cinematography; good score; lots of great monster-on-monster smashy smashy. Why the hell did they try to construct a narrative structure involving the human characters? The only one that was remotely interesting what the little girl. 

Just keep the good bits. Keep the interactions with the kid and make all the non-monster scenes the moral equivalent of the opening to Once Upon a Time in the West or parts of There will be Blood or Children of Men. Not a goddamn word of dialogue in the whole film. Wrap it up in a tight 90 minutes and then clear a shelf for all those Oscars, son.