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

[BigFatCoward]

26 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

Yeah it did kind of show that she improved something that really didn’t have any right to be as good as it was and elevated it to being something special 

Not aware of anything she's done that wasn't very good/excellent.

Except the fleabag stage show but she gets a pass because I watched it on amazon or netflix and its probably not the correct medium to watch a one person stage show monologue. 

[Ramsay B.]

2 hours ago, BigFatCoward said:

Stop after season 1. It goes downhill very quickly. 

I watched the first 2 episodes of season 2 and just gave up on it for whatever reason. Apparently a smart move. 

I saw Dune on the big screen and really enjoyed it. I started the book last week not realizing it came out so soon so only got like a hundred pages in though. Kinda bummed part 2 hasn’t even gotten the green light yet. For whatever reason I had it in my head that it was already finished. I was way off.

Also saw the new Bond last week. I put it behind Casino Royale and Skyfall, but it was very entertaining. Wish they fleshed out Malek’s villain more but altogether a nice Craig sendoff. 
 

I was asked to go see Venom 2 a few weeks ago and went expecting dumb fun. It was absolutely dreadful. If I was alone I would’ve left 15 minutes in. The worst part is the audience was laughing at everything and actually clapped at the end. Dumb

[ithanos]

Today I went back to the cinema to watch The Last Dual, after not catching it yesterday. I agree with other comments about the leads, particularly Jodie Comer and Adam Driver. I thought Ben Affleck was fine in his part, and so was Matt Damon - however I wished Damon and/or the makeup team had decided upon a different look for Damon's character instead of the mullet & goatee-beard. I struggled through all his scenes not to think I was seeing comedian Theo Von.  Affleck & Damon can write a good screenplay but I'm glad they brought in Nicole Holofcener in for a female perspective, I was a bit worried we weren't going to get a full Rashomon treatment half way in. Overall an excellent movie, well made with Ridley Scott and his production team bringing their impeccable set designs and shooting with their signature light blue tint.

Yesterday when I went to the cinema to watch The Last Dual I found to my surprise that The Harder They Fall was also showing in cinema, before its global release on Netflix on Nov 3rd. So I swapped one historical drama based on real events set in Medieval France for an action shoot'em up using historical figures from America's Wild West. It did not disappoint, hot damn!

When I got to my seat I found I was the only one there, 50G Achievement Unlocked! Then during the trailers one other person showed up and sat half a dozen rows away, deduct 5G!  The story is a retread & composition of all the tropes that make up a good Western - its serviced here better than most of recent years. The style is Tarantino & Pekinpah meets Morricone & Leone updated with modern beats that did not seem out of context. I loved the titles. I must admit there was some dust in my eyes at the end - Jonathan Majors and Idris Elba are great as the two leads, Majors in particular.

I sat through the credits and noted a dedication to the recently passed Michael K Williams, and thought it might've been requested by Elba and Majors, who both worked with Williams, in The Wire for Elba, and fairly recently in Lovecraft Country for Majors. But then I read up on the director Jeymes Samuel and found he had directed a 50min feature back in 2013 called They Die By Dawn with Williams playing the character of Nat Love who was a real life American cowboy and one of the most famous heroes of the Old West. Majors' character in The Harder They Fall is Nat Love.     

My cinema's got a Half Price Tuesdays deal going and I'm thinking of seeing The Harder They Fall again, because as good as my ultrawide 4K monitor and stereo headphones are for watching Netflex, it can't match that in-cinema experience and the sound system, which was booming for this soundtrack. It was a lot of fun the first time.

[Annara Snow]

 I saw Dune last night in the cinema and I found it to be completely meh.

First off, I haven't read the book (I bought it a while ago but still haven't had the time to read, and I still plan to read it) so I was going blind except for a few of the most basic ideas (everyone knows about the space worms...). So I'm judging it as a film on its own rather than as an adaptation, and I can't tell which part of the fact I was not compelled by the story or characters was due to the adaptation and which to the source material, but I can also say for certainty that it is bad as an adaptatin fro the fact that it does a bad job of explaining its worldbuilding to someone who hasn't read the book.

I couldn't help comparing it to Foundation - as viewer who hasn't read either of the source materials: Foundation the TV show >>>>>>> Dune the movie (Which is funny since so many people are trashing Foundation here.)

Yes,  yes, I know a TV show has more time, but 2 and a half hours is almost the same screentime as 3 episodes of a TV show.

The Dune movie fails badly at explaining its worldbuilding. There were multiple things I was confused about and had to ask about after the movie, and other things I had no idea about until I was told about them afterwards (I watched it with a friend who has read Dune and is a fan). He was also critical of it and agreed they failed to get a lot of things across. Whereas I've never been confused like that aany point during Foundation, it got everything across re: the worldbuilding and the ideas and themes - and it's made these ideas and themes interesting to me, which Dune has failed to do. (Now, I don't know how much the difference in this aspect lies in the adaptations and how much in the books.)

Spoiler

The force shield in Dune ended up confusing the hell out of me - because I didn't understand why it was still apparently there when people were actually killing each other and how it wasn't protecting them then. My friend explained that the force shield protects you just from fast attacks but not from slow ones...? Not sure how that works, but it was, in any case, never mentioned. (They also had regular armor, but Duncan got mortally wounded apparenrly by a sword piercing his armor?! Which was plain stupid. Why were they wearing armor that doesn't protect you from the conventional weapons?)

I also felt after the movie that it was more fantasy than SciFi, but that's because the film didn't do much explanating about how exactly the characters (such as the Bene Gesserit order) had the powers they had.

I also still don't know what was going on with the Baron and his apparent powers.

He also thought the betrayal storyline was very poorly done - I can only say that the identity of the traitor was very "so what" for me, as the character had been very minor and undeveloped up to that point - but apparently, that plot is more fleshed out there is a reason in the book why everyone trusted that character and thought him incapable of betrayal.

Even in the aspect that's relatively the weakest in Foundation- characters - it still easy trumps Dune, where I didn't find anyone particularly interesting or compelling.

It goes without saying that Foundation is also a lot more visually impressive, though that may still be surprising to some as one is a streaming show and the other a big budget film directed by Denis Villeneuve.

[Corvinus85]

37 minutes ago, Annara Snow said:

 

  Reveal hidden contents

The force shield in Dune ended up confusing the hell out of me - because I didn't understand why it was still apparently there when people were actually killing each other and how it wasn't protecting them then. My friend explained that the force shield protects you just from fast attacks but not from slow ones...? Not sure how that works, but it was, in any case, never mentioned. (They also had regular armor, but Duncan got mortally wounded apparenrly by a sword piercing his armor?! Which was plain stupid. Why were they wearing armor that doesn't protect you from the conventional weapons?)

I also felt after the movie that it was more fantasy than SciFi, but that's because the film didn't do much explanating about how exactly the characters (such as the Bene Gesserit order) had the powers they had.

I also still don't know what was going on with the Baron and his apparent powers.

He also thought the betrayal storyline was very poorly done - I can only say that the identity of the traitor was very "so what" for me, as the character had been very minor and undeveloped up to that point - but apparently, that plot is more fleshed out there is a reason in the book why everyone trusted that character and thought him incapable of betrayal.

 

Spoiler

The shield function was mentioned when Paul spars with Gurney. Gurney says "the slow blade penetrates the shield." We see evidence of this a few times, when the Duke is taken out by the dart or when the Atreides ships are destroyed by bombs which slowly land on top and then detonate.

Duncan wasn't wearing armor, he was wearing a stillsuit.

The Baron doesn't have powers, he has suspensors that are some type of anti-gravity technology which allows him to float. When he's naked in the first scene we see he has something on his back, but yes they weren't really explained. Then again, we see numerous objects floating about, so it's apparent that they posses anti-gravity tech.

We got a spoiler thread, if you wish to discuss more.

[Annara Snow]

20 minutes ago, Corvinus85 said:

  Reveal hidden contents

The shield function was mentioned when Paul spars with Gurney. Gurney says "the slow blade penetrates the shield." We see evidence of this a few times, when the Duke is taken out by the dart or when the Atreides ships are destroyed by bombs which slowly land on top and then detonate.

Duncan wasn't wearing armor, he was wearing a stillsuit.

The Baron doesn't have powers, he has suspensors that are some type of anti-gravity technology which allows him to float. When he's naked in the first scene we see he has something on his back, but yes they weren't really explained. Then again, we see numerous objects floating about, so it's apparent that they posses anti-gravity tech.

We got a spoiler thread, if you wish to discuss more.

Thanks. I still think they could have used the 2.5 hours better to explain and flesh out more things rather than just hammering home Paul's Chosen One specialness 150 times. 

 

ETA: I will, in any case, read the book before part 2 comes out. There have been quite a few times when I loved a book and was meh about its adaptations even when they were relatively faithful.

[Heartofice]

Just to say the shield thing is explained a couple of times in the movie and is demonstrated when Paul is training. If you aren’t paying total attention you would miss it, but there are so many visual examples of how it works I would think you’d get it after a while

[Annara Snow]

40 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

Just to say the shield thing is explained a couple of times in the movie and is demonstrated when Paul is training. If you aren’t paying total attention you would miss it, but there are so many visual examples of how it works I would think you’d get it after a while

Well, sorry to disappoint, I guess my intellectual abilities just aren't at such a level to comprehend the laws of physics where a slow thrust of a weapon can pierce a force field but a fast one by the same weapon can't. My bad.

[Zorral]

Four Hours At the Capitol (2021) HBO.

January 6 Insurrection, the action, not as to why. Just what happened.

Considering what this nation is with guns, and shoggoth supporters with guns – why was only one person shot?  Why did both sides hold off on shooting, when cops and individuals are opening fire on peaceful protestors and school children and others nearly every frakin’ single day in the USA?  Is it because both sides knew each other was armed and dangerous, and ultimately these jerkwaddie shoggoth insurrectionists weren’t in a real army, and they knew they themselves could be shot. and not being in an army, under a real chain of command, decided, individually not to put MY LIFE on the line?  Four hours of this medieval siege, yet nobody shot anybody except the stupid woman who insisted in going in against armed cops? Discussing this question at dinner tonight, it was suggested that if Babbit hadn't been shot things could have gotten a lot worse, because this doc makes clear guns were present. It was also weird seeing all these guys, particularly the Proud Boys, with these enormous, heavy back packs, that all are wearing.  And then, later, suddenly there are baseball bats and so on that were not visibly carried on the way to the Capitol.

The Commander of the Capitol Police, and his buddy, who got stomped, both testify, as do many a 'proud guy' live for cameras to intersperse among the recorded scenes of what was going on -- including "NAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANCEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE".

What I take away from this is just how heroically behaved the Capitol Police we see here (we aren't seeing here the ones who sold out the Capitol).

This isn't a 'recreation.'  This is all video from the participants and CCTV and witnesses. So much documentation going on as it was going down.

[Veltigar]

Watched two features this weekend:

1. Sleepy Hollow: Probably my favorite Tim Burton film (certainly among the live-action films of his I have seen). Hadn't seen it in years, but really enjoyed the acting, heightened dreamlike version of 18th Century New York state and action. Really good to see this around Halloween.
2. Pig: The new Nicholas Cage film getting decent reviews. I appreciated it, but would not have picked it up. It's mostly fun to think about and I think will probably feel stronger in a few years when some of the films it is riffing on have receded back in the popular consciousness. While watching it, I felt like I was watching a derivative mix of 
   Spoiler

   John Wick ft. Ratatouille with a sprinkle of Fight Club on top. 

   But it does sort of earn it by the end as it's a pretty profound meditation on grief. If I hadn't seen the films on which it was riffing, I wonder whether I would have found the whole experience more agreeable. 

[Cashless Society]

Watched a few films over the weekend:

Le Samouraï, a French neo-noir film about a hitman who tries to evade police investigators because there were witnesses who can identify him. Wonderfully crafted movie with minimalistic use of dialogue and a methodical yet suave performance by the lead actor that truly made it feel like the protagonist was being trapped in a cage trying to escape. I just wish the Craig era Bond films were made with a similar swagger.

Akira Kurosawa's majestic epic, Ran. Basically, Shakespeare's King Lear set in Japan. Proof that there's no need for low-key lighting and desaturated colours for a film to be considered "cinema".

The eye-candy on display here is amazing. Everything from the wide shots used, the precise and symmetrical framing, the placement of the props, the coordinated movements of the actors right down to the trampling of the horses just feels so precise that only an insane perfectionist on the level of Kubrick could have crafted this.

I just wish a few blockbusters would look at international cinema as a source of inspiration, instead doing variations of the same films that came out during the Hollywood New Wave.

High and Low, another Kurosawa film about a shoe company executive who plans a takeover of the company but the plan is put in jeopardy when his son gets kidnapped and held for ransom. Really well made film that kept me engaged throughout the entire runtime (although there is a 15 minute sequence that felt extremely self-indulgent). I felt that the themes, framing, editing and general tone were quite similar to Parasite, so if you liked that then definitely give this one a watch.

[Wilbur]

5 hours ago, Cashless Society said:

Watched a few films over the weekend:

Le Samouraï, a French neo-noir film about a hitman who tries to evade police investigators because there were witnesses who can identify him. Wonderfully crafted movie with minimalistic use of dialogue and a methodical yet suave performance by the lead actor that truly made it feel like the protagonist was being trapped in a cage trying to escape. I just wish the Craig era Bond films were made with a similar swagger.

Akira Kurosawa's majestic epic, Ran. Basically, Shakespeare's King Lear set in Japan. Proof that there's no need for low-key lighting and desaturated colours for a film to be considered "cinema".

The eye-candy on display here is amazing. Everything from the wide shots used, the precise and symmetrical framing, the placement of the props, the coordinated movements of the actors right down to the trampling of the horses just feels so precise that only an insane perfectionist on the level of Kubrick could have crafted this.

I just wish a few blockbusters would look at international cinema as a source of inspiration, instead doing variations of the same films that came out during the Hollywood New Wave.

High and Low, another Kurosawa film about a shoe company executive who plans a takeover of the company but the plan is put in jeopardy when his son gets kidnapped and held for ransom. Really well made film that kept me engaged throughout the entire runtime (although there is a 15 minute sequence that felt extremely self-indulgent). I felt that the themes, framing, editing and general tone were quite similar to Parasite, so if you liked that then definitely give this one a watch.

Well that was some classy weekend viewing.

[Ran]

@Cashless Society

Kurosawa is so, so good.

The great Alain Delon was the star of Le Samouraï. Definitely one of the great charismatic leading men, IMO.

[Deadlines? What Deadlines?]

I went down the rabbit hole last week with The Crown. I ignored that series for four seasons because, ""why the hell would I want to watch something like that?" Then I caught a few clips on youtube. It's phenomenal.

The production values are insane. I'm sure some of what I'm seeing is green screen because I can't imagine they got access to the actual sites or built that many physical sets. Either way, it's seamless. 

The performances are incredible. All 10/10 with one possible exception: I thought Gillian Anderson's Thatcher was (literally) a bit too stiff. She does a great job of capturing her speech but not, not so much, her mannerisms. I think she could have dialed is back or tweaked it a tiny bit. That's a minor criticism though. John Lithgow is great as Churchill. Alex Jennings as Prince Edward is probably the most underrated performance on the show. Claire Foy and Olivia Coleman are brilliant.

I could go on. Highly recommend.

[DMC]

8 minutes ago, Deadlines? What Deadlines? said:

I thought Gillian Anderson's Thatcher was (literally) a bit too stiff. She does a great job of capturing her speech but not, not so much, her mannerisms. I think she could have dialed is back or tweaked it a tiny bit.

Agreed I thought Anderson was a bit too caricature-y and over the top.

[Zorral]

2 hours ago, Ran said:

Definitely one of the great charismatic leading men,

He, and Belmondo, together!  Oooooo la la!

[WarGalley]

30 minutes ago, Deadlines? What Deadlines? said:

I went down the rabbit hole last week with The Crown. I ignored that series for four seasons because, ""why the hell would I want to watch something like that?" Then I caught a few clips on youtube. It's phenomenal.

I think I fell into that same boat. As an American ignorant of a lot of British politics, my initial reactions to The Crown is that it would probably bore me. What storylines would possibly be of interest to me? And so I never watched an episode (don't think I've even watched a full trailer). Given the reviews and acclaim, I'll no doubt eat those thoughts later on when I do catch up to it. 

[Deadlines? What Deadlines?]

34 minutes ago, DMC said:

Agreed I thought Anderson was a bit too caricature-y and over the top.

It's possible that was done intentionally to contrast her character with Colemans Queen Elizabeth. These are people who are both wearing public personas but Colemans QE2 does it more naturally. But it was almost like she was playing the same elderly, frail Thatcher at times she was anything but.  That might have been fine for her after 12 years as PM but not at the beginning.

Also, Thatcher smiled more. A toothy, terrifying, soul-cleaving, smile. 

[Deadlines? What Deadlines?]

1 minute ago, WarGalley said:

I think I fell into that same boat. As an American ignorant of a lot of British politics, my initial reactions to The Crown is that it would probably bore me. What storylines would possibly be of interest to me? And so I never watched an episode (don't think I've even watched a full trailer). Given the reviews and acclaim, I'll no doubt eat those thoughts later on when I do catch up to it. 

The best comparison I can make is Forrest Gump. Though I'm not a big fan of that film, it's similar in the sense that The Crown is a dramatized QE2 story but interwoven with 20th century post-war history. 

[Rippounet]

Finished Squid Game tonight.

Best show I've seen since The Queen's Gambit, though of course the two shows have -absolutely- nothing in common.

The execution is pretty much flawless. I could nitpick a bit, but all in all there's no major mistakes.
I think there are a few times when the acting of the main character (Lee Jung-jae) is a bit over the top (especially facial expressions), and the characterization of one character could arguably be considered slightly racist, but that could be just me.
The plot is amazing of course. I knew what to expect on many levels (by reading manhwa and manga), but it still manages to bring several new things to the genre (should we call it "horror games"? Articles talk of "survival games"). There's a lot of symbolism in there, and a rather explicit, almost heavy-handed, commentary on capitalism. But that counts as a positive in my book. You get 9 episodes packed with brutal horror and psychological torture, exactly as expected from the start.
In many ways, this is a show that doesn't fuck around, which is always refreshing.

This is one of the most anti-capitalist shows I've ever watched. The absurdity of the games combined with the near-anthropological dimensions... There's even anti-colonialism in there, not to mention ridiculing religion. I really enjoyed the fact that there are no "winners" in this story.

Brilliant meta-dimension as well.

Apparently it's been called "derivative" ? I guess it's not original if you've seen or read other other Korean or Japanese works of the same genre, but I'd say it's still miles away from anything Western. It's also significantly deeper than YA stuff like Hunger Games.

I think the show could have worked with a single season, to highlight the absurdity of "the game" (the greater one, i.e., life under hyper-capitalism). But I'll certainly watch a second season (assuming there is one, which is a safe bet imho), to see if the author can further develop his views. It won't be easy, but since he unsuccessfully pitched his idea for ten years, I reckon he has lots of ideas for a sequel.