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Watch, Watched, Watching : Series or Stand Alone? Home or Theater?


Zorral

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47 minutes ago, l2 0 5 5 said:

I watched Wind River again over the weekend. Can't recommend it enough. It's on Netflix if you haven't seen it before. 

It’s so good. Very few movies/shows/books, etc actually choke me up. Wind River did. Specifically the scene at the end 

Spoiler

Where Jeremy Renner’s character is visiting Elizabeth Olsen in the hospital, and he’s telling her how tough she is. 

The statistics during the closing about all the unsolved crimes against Native American women are really upsetting. I actually just finished reading the comic series Scalped by Jason Aaron recently. It’s set on a fictional reservation in South Dakota. I thought of Wind River (and Yellowstone) more than a few times while reading it. 

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18 hours ago, Mindwalker said:

They did stop, after season 3.

I completely agree, after s1 they totally abandoned caracterization and any credible plot in favor of inserting their issues, but being too lazy to do it in a meaningful way fitting the time and place. And the speechifying... the dialogue... the 21st century vocabulary and mindset... Even Marilla, whom I loved, is acting ooc.

The signs were already there in s1, I think (a whole village doesn't know how to deal with a fire, but Anne does, etc), but there was so much good stuff I was willing to overlook them.

Such a wasted opportunity.

Agreed, 100%. The positive parts of the first season outweighed the negatives. And that completely turned around in season 2. Everything stopped making sense and it’s all about social issues that are shoehorned into the story. I understand and respect that these are important issues, but they aren’t the only topics in the world and I’m sorry, but no, not everything is or should be about social justice. Especially that the show is completely incapable of treating the issues with nuance, subtlety, complexity and heaven forbid, presentation that’s realistic or at least semi-believable for the period. It’s pathetic and they don’t realize that it’s doing more harm than service to the issues too. 

Well my favorite bit is that they managed to stir the feminism ship in a way that the bottom line message of the story at this point is that romantic relationships are the single most important driver and meaning of  any individual’s life. Every theme and message just collapsed like the girls’ forest hideout. 

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8 hours ago, RhaenysBee said:

romantic relationships are the single most important driver and meaning of  any individual’s life. 

That's what happens to Ann with an E in the later books after she goes to college, which she loves, and writes, and then teaches, which she doesn't love as much, and then marries Gilbert and becomes a mom.  All of her imagination and dreams collapse and the charm of which brought us to Ann with an E in the first place is gone as it if never was.  One wonders if that's the reason Montgomery keeps writing about Ann's life when this all there is?

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12 hours ago, BigFatCoward said:

Trailer makes it look like sex education and the order of the phoenix. 

as long as otis prevails over wheelchair dude i don't care. i can't recall being more pissed at a tv show than last season when he deleted the voicemail.

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14 hours ago, Nictarion said:

It’s so good. Very few movies/shows/books, etc actually choke me up. Wind River did. Specifically the scene at the end 

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Where Jeremy Renner’s character is visiting Elizabeth Olsen in the hospital, and he’s telling her how tough she is. 

The statistics during the closing about all the unsolved crimes against Native American women are really upsetting. I actually just finished reading the comic series Scalped by Jason Aaron recently. It’s set on a fictional reservation in South Dakota. I thought of Wind River (and Yellowstone) more than a few times while reading it. 

 

That is a great scene. Natalie's dad breaking down is rough too. My heart is beating out of my chest when the gunfight between the police and workers goes down. And again when they show Jon Bernthal getting beat to death. 

Wouldn't have realized this first time watching some years ago, but nice surprise with the Yellowstone actors in this.

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Not sure I've seen this mentioned anywhere else on the forum, so this thread feels fitting. Behold the powers of documentaries:

Quote

A Los Angeles jury found Robert Durst, the notorious subject of the HBO series "The Jinx," guilty of first-degree murder for the killing of his best friend, Susan Berman, more than 20 years ago.

Durst has been charged with the first-degree murder of Berman in 2000 at her Beverly Hills home, hours before she was set to talk to investigators about the mysterious disappearance of his first wife, Kathleen McCormack Durst, who was last seen in 1982.
 
McCormack Durst was declared legally dead in 2017. Her body has not been found and no one has been charged in the case.

https://www.cnn.com/2021/09/17/us/robert-durst-los-angeles-jury-verdict/index.html

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17 hours ago, Zorral said:

That's what happens to Ann with an E in the later books after she goes to college, which she loves, and writes, and then teaches, which she doesn't love as much, and then marries Gilbert and becomes a mom.  All of her imagination and dreams collapse and the charm of which brought us to Ann with an E in the first place is gone as it if never was.  One wonders if that's the reason Montgomery keeps writing about Ann's life when this all there is?

I haven’t read the novels so I can only guess, but perhaps losing her childhood dreams and imagination and becoming exactly what society meant her to be is part of the natural way (and tragedy, if I want to be dramatic) of growing up. Maybe. I don’t know. 

What irks me in the series is that the coming of age theme and story is completely abandoned, and any and every value portrayed in themes or characters has been exchanged for romantic partnership or lack there of. I could feel pages with how they butchered every single character and theme as well as the overarching message. 

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I watched Gunpowder Milkshake. There were things I liked about it but it did feel a bit style-over-substance. It has a very stylised look with lots of colourful scenes and some amusingly inventive action sequences. The cast were fine but I don't think they were given much to work with in terms of characterisation and it all felt a bit shallow. It is a bit reminiscent of the John Wick films in its portrayal of a secret world of assassins with the library feeling like this film's equivalent of the Continental Hotels but I don't think it is as effective in terms of making me care about what happens in the plot.

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Oh, this is kind of funny:  Jeff Probst had a little down time before this season of Survivor, and he got into Joseph Campbell.  Sounds like he's modelling the twists and turns in this season after the Hero's Journey, somehow.

Quote

Probst wonders, noting that Campbell’s work has, especially recently, helped him to uncover “five stages” of “Survivor.” “It makes it really clear what kind of an advantage or twist would go in stage one, and what kind would go in stage two,” Probst says. “I feel like we just uncovered our format, and it’s brand-new.”

 

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7 hours ago, RhaenysBee said:

I haven’t read the novels so I can only guess, but perhaps losing her childhood dreams and imagination and becoming exactly what society meant her to be is part of the natural way (and tragedy, if I want to be dramatic) of growing up. Maybe. I don’t know. 

What irks me in the series is that the coming of age theme and story is completely abandoned, and any and every value portrayed in themes or characters has been exchanged for romantic partnership or lack there of. I could feel pages with how they butchered every single character and theme as well as the overarching message. 

Particularly in the first novel and really even the second one, the relationships that matter are among the girls, the girls' and particularly Anne's relationships with the Cuthberts, and theirs with her, and even her relationships with other adults in the community, some of whom like her a great deal and others who see her good qualities in spite of themselves.  And -- this incident of the PUFFED SLEEVES for which Anne yearns as only Anne can yearn, but Marilla will only go for the common sense sort of UNFASHIONABLE straight sleeve. Defeating the shyness that has kept Matthew so solitary, he consults a woman friend of Marilla's for advice and assistance to get a dress made of the sort Anne wants so much.  These sorts of interactions are at least as significant in a community as sex and crime, I think.

 

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Shameful admission, I've never watched The Sopranos, but I'm a few episodes in now and this is great.

I've also never watched Shane, despite my love of westerns. Once the current episode of the former is over I'm putting that on next. 

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Netflix S1 Defeated

Set just in the aftermath of WW2 in Berlin while the city was divided into  quadrants by the Russians, Americans, British and France.

The story centers around a NYPD officer assigned by the State Dept to assist in getting the war ravaged cities police department reestablished.

This is an excellent drama with multiple interesting characters.

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Finally got around to watching and catching up with Reservation Dogs. It seems I'm attuned to Native American (NDN) humour as I found it hilarious. In the opening episodes the main quartet of characters are overshadowed by some great cameos and side characters. But the last few episodes, centering on individual characters, really opened up the scope to examine darker facets of native life in rural America through the lens of humour. Also great is that its predominantly indigenous writers, cast and production. 

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7 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

I've also never watched Shane, despite my love of westerns. Once the current episode of the former is over I'm putting that on next. 

I never got what was the big deal with Shane.  In terms of lauded classic westerns, it's almost certainly my least favorite.

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7 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

Shameful admission, I've never watched The Sopranos, but I'm a few episodes in now and this is great.

I've also never watched Shane, despite my love of westerns. Once the current episode of the former is over I'm putting that on next. 

Oh yes, the show is great. Have you seen 1x05? That's the show's first really great episode. 

You're not the only one who has needed to watch some of the great dramas that are regularly mentioned as the best ever. I'm planning to finally binge Breaking Bad before 2021 is over (I have seen the first 2 episodes, which I found just OK, but everyone says season 1 is not the show's best) and, most shamefully, while I loved season 1 of The Wire, many years ago, I missed some episodes at the time and then never found the time to binge all of it, even though I've planned to for so many years. (It's even crazier I haven't done it because I loved everything David Simon and Tom Fontana have done - Homicide: LOTS, Oz, Borgia, The Plot Against America).

5 hours ago, DireWolfSpirit said:

Netflix S1 Defeated

Set just in the aftermath of WW2 in Berlin while the city was divided into  quadrants by the Russians, Americans, British and France.

The story centers around a NYPD officer assigned by the State Dept to assist in getting the war ravaged cities police department reestablished.

This is an excellent drama with multiple interesting characters.

I thought the show sounded interesting, good to hear that it is also good. I'm putting it on my watch list (but my watch list is already very long... it has hundreds of shows and movies. So many shows, so little time).

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31 minutes ago, Annara Snow said:

Oh yes, the show is great. Have you seen 1x05? That's the show's first really great episode. 

"College" is oft-cited as one of the greatest episodes, and deservedly so.  One that I think gets short shrift on such lists is "Mr. Ruggiero's Neighborhood," the season 3 premiere.  For many reasons, but without spoiling anything, always loved this mashup of Every Breath You Take and the Peter Gunn theme:

 

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