Watch, Watching, Watch -- Hold 'em, Fold 'em, When to Walk Away

[Corvinus85]

Finished the final season of Lost in Space. Very good ending. Overall the season was a bit weaker on the cool science stuff compared to the previous ones, which also made some of the plots wonkier, but it still had the heart that this show always had. It was really emotional at the end. Not all the characters got a lot of character development, but the ones that I think viewers were hoping for, like Smith and Penny did by the end.

[DireWolfSpirit]

Netflix's 14 Peaks: Nothing is Impossible

Another in a long line of high altitude climbing movies and documentaries that I've been enjoying since reading and viewing Krakauer's Into thin Air and Boukreev's The Climb.

This climbing doc which chronicles Nimral Purja's Project Possible, an seemingly impossible attempt by the Nepali and his support team of amazing Sherpa's to summit all of the Worlds 14 peaks over 8000 meters IN 7 FREAKING MONTHS!!

This is an amazing watch, the scenery, the Nepali national pride, and the feats of an amazing super human. A super man like many have never known. Several of his contemporaries speak with absolute reverence towards him in the interviews.

Nothing is Impossible is the most perfect title for this one. And I also love how this is a Nepali story front and center, not in the background, like many of the previous Western centric mountaineering stories we've been brought in the past.  

You will leave shaking your head in amazement at the sheer audacity of this campaign.

[Annara Snow]

23 hours ago, Ran said:

Binged through seasons 3-5 of The Expanse, after having stopped after season 2 when it changed from Netflix to Amazon here. I've not read past the very first novel of the series (stopped because I couldn't stand Holden's chapters, even though I adored the Miller chapters), so I don't know much beyond what's in the show.

Truly excellent show, anyways, and having someone of David Strathairn's caliber as a supporting character for a couple of seasons was terrific -- Klaes Ashford was wonderfully brought to life, that old pirate. Cara Gee as Drummer is also very appealing; love the brittleness and resoluteness of her character. 

I did have bits and pieces that were a little silly, though:

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It seemed a bit absurd that Elvi did not immediately do a typical medical  assessment of Holden -- like asking him "Are you on any medications?" -- just to stretch out the blindness plot line. Fine, she's a scientist, not a doctor, but... I don't know, seemed pretty obvious!

While Klaes's sendoff was pitch perfect... I admit, I do not understand why he did not just shoot Marco, taking him down with him, or at least having a chance to do so. There's no way that he thought he was going to get out of there alive. I know, maybe it was the long game of hopefully managing to record their conversation, and hopefully Marco giving away some hint of his plans, and hopefully someone then finds that hidden communication log... but, again, just shooting him in the head would probably have done a world of good. Not for Earth, I guess, his attack would have gone unstopped, but after that I doubt Filip and co. are up to keeping the Free Navy going.

Speaking of casting, I do feel the later seasons are hamstrung by the very obvious absence of Jared Harris as Dawes. The OPA basically just vanishes in season 5 and we have a lot of talking around it. Shame, but that's the nature of adaptation. I'm not sure why they did not introduce some sort of second-in-command to him that they could build up who would be more available.

OTOH, Keon Alexander was terrific casting as Marco Inaros. He sold his charismatic terrorist leader role extremely well. Absurdly handsome fellow, too.

All in all, while it's not quite my favorite SF show ever, it's very much up there. And it certainly presents one of the most cohesive and impressive pictures of international interplanetary relations and politics that I've seen in a work of TV science fiction. The dilemma that Mars faces after the events of season 3 and the ripple effect it sends through the Martian society that had been on war-footing for many years was unexpected but a hundred percent understandable. (I will say I do find the Martian side of politics a bit underexplored in the show -- they did some wonderful touches showing propaganda scattered all over the place, but didn't get much of a sense of what Martians actually think about being bombarded with it 24-7.)

One thing the show sort of lacks is much sense of culture outside of some occasional Belter music. Would have been intriguing to see what sort of television was popular among the three factions.

Finally: 

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Episode 7 of season 5, "Hard Vacuum", was one of the most intense hours of television I've seen. Dominique Tipper's performance was wrenching, and incredible.

 

Seeing how little screentime Jared Harris had on Foundation, I wonder if it could have been possible to get him to be in the final season. I feel like he could have easily done both. 

[Zorral]

After an endless day of reading papers, doing course prep, laundry and cooking, binged the three episodes of The Tower (2021), a BBC miniseries, featuring Gemma Whelan (Yara Greyjoy) as DS Sarah Collins, investigating the deaths of an adolescent refugee girl and long serving cop, who plunged to the ground below simultaneously from the top of a high rise residence tower. Why and how?

It was a good watch. Recommended.

[Ramsay B.]

On 12/4/2021 at 3:19 AM, Nictarion said:

Just finished The Power of the Dog on Netflix. Fantastic film. Probably will end up being my favorite of the year. Pretty much everything about it was top notch. Easily the best performance I’ve ever seen from Benedict Cumberbatch. It’s also absolutely gorgeous looking from the first frame on. And the score by Johnny Greenwood was amazing. I highly recommend it. 

I thought it was solid. Wasn’t blown away by Cumberbatch’s performance but he was definitely good. Dunst straight killed it though. She had the standout performance in my eyes.

Agree about the cinematography and score both being amazing.

[Rippounet]

Finished the British show Years and years last night.

It's not often you have a brilliant show that's also a huge disappointment. The characters, acting, and overall plot are all excellent. But the show doesn't do exactly what the trailer promised. The show follows "the lives and loves of the Lyons family over 15 years as Britain is rocked by political upheavals, economic instability and technological advances." From the trailer, you expect to see what Britain becomes under the leadership of Vivienne Rook, a Trump-like figure, played by the terrific Emma Thompson.

Except, that's not what the show is, not exactly. After a very intense first episode, politics takes something of a backseat, with Rook really coming back frontstage in episode 5. This means the show deliberately avoids connecting the different elements (politics, economics, global warming, technology... ) in order to remain as politically neutral as possible. There is no in-depth analysis of the various dimensions of the social and political instability. The show kinda takes a cheap shot at the banking sector, but doesn't go much further. Even the media get away without any serious criticism.
Climate change is bad, and countless refugees are coming to Europe, but British society sort of adapts to it all : people start eating vegan burgers, and technological innovation continues. People lose their savings, and their jobs, but I don't think a single character even alludes to the possibility that greed and predatory capitalism might have something to do with it, even though the characters all obviously suffer because ot it.

What you get in the end is the impression that the world is going to the dogs and people are going crazy, but the show avoids clearly giving any reason for it.
 

Spoiler

That's because the real aim of the show is to criticize populism. When an explanation finally comes (in the finale), it's only to lay the blame on the Lyons themselves - and indirectly, on the viewer - through the mouth of the matriarch of the family (the hilarious Muriel).
Several lines clearly attack democracy (of all things), especially with the activist in the family turning to cynical nihilism. Instead of explaining anything about the world we live in, the show ends up indicting the "clowns and the crooks" and the people who vote for them. And even that is not well done, since the media don't get any blame.
The final lesson is that if only everyone acted against the craziness, everything would be all right.

Imho, the show ends up working against itself. It brilliantly shows the appeal of populism, and its eventual consequences ; it's very clever to make Rook more likeable than she should be, only to expose just how horrible she actually is.
But limiting the actual criticism to populism makes it very unsatisfying, because it ends up blaming the characters themselves for their woes. They are clearly victims of the overall system, but this is only suggested, not said.

In the finale, exposing Rook's concentration camps to the world is enough to cause her downfall, as if the answer to neo-fascism is exposure. But what about all the rest? We'll never know. Rook's fall doesn't directly solve any of the characters' problems. Technically, Rook was not responsible for the sorry state of the world in the first place, and yet the show pretends that taking populism out of the equation is like a magic solution.

 

[Larry of the Lawn]

10 hours ago, DireWolfSpirit said:

Netflix's 14 Peaks: Nothing is Impossible

Another in a long line of high altitude climbing movies and documentaries that I've been enjoying since reading and viewing Krakauer's Into thin Air and Boukreev's The Climb.

This climbing doc which chronicles Nimral Purja's Project Possible, an seemingly impossible attempt by the Nepali and his support team of amazing Sherpa's to summit all of the Worlds 14 peaks over 8000 meters IN 7 FREAKING MONTHS!!

This is an amazing watch, the scenery, the Nepali national pride, and the feats of an amazing super human. A super man like many have never known. Several of his contemporaries speak with absolute reverence towards him in the interviews.

Nothing is Impossible is the most perfect title for this one. And I also love how this is a Nepali story front and center, not in the background, like many of the previous Western centric mountaineering stories we've been brought in the past.  

You will leave shaking your head in amazement at the sheer audacity of this campaign.

Will have to check this out, I am a sucker for climbing docs.  How did you like Boukreev's book?  I just found a very used copy a couple weeks ago.  

Have you seen Meru?  If you like high altitude/mixed climbing docs it's definitely a good one.  And of course, while not high altitude, I have to watch Valley Uprising like every six months.

[Zorral]

1 hour ago, Rippounet said:

It's not often you have a brilliant show that's also a huge disappointment.

I gave up on it after the first episodes.  Also we were into the shoggoth's regime, and I just couldn't take this show, for the reasons behind your spoiler screen.

[Rippounet]

40 minutes ago, Zorral said:

I gave up on it after the first episodes.  Also we were into the shoggoth's regime, and I just couldn't take this show, for the reasons behind your spoiler screen.

That first episode remains terrifying, even with Trump out of office.

I'm still mulling it over. On the one hand, the show does establish that a number of laws have been changed before Rook was in power, and shows the effects of hyper-capitalism. But on the other hand, it doesn't do anything with that information, and then turns its commentary in the wrong direction.

 

[john]

@Rippounet Was going to respond on Years and Years but, it turns out, I was basically going to say the same thing as in your spoiler block.

Essentially, RTD is a drama writer, he’s never been much of a political commentator of that kind, only interested in vast systems to the extent that the people exercising power have similar personal problems and are no more or less selfish than the rest of us.

It’s a Sin was the same, everybody, including the victims, was playing a role in perpetuating the societal problems that led to the aids epidemic. Some are more blameworthy than others, of course.

[Nictarion]

Rewatched Blue Ruin. Even better than I remembered. 

Spoiler

I somehow completely forgot about the youngest Cleland being Dwight’s half brother. The final scene hits so hard. 

 

[DireWolfSpirit]

4 hours ago, 1066 Larry said:

Will have to check this out, I am a sucker for climbing docs.  How did you like Boukreev's book?  I just found a very used copy a couple weeks ago.  

Have you seen Meru?  If you like high altitude/mixed climbing docs it's definitely a good one.  And of course, while not high altitude, I have to watch Valley Uprising like every six months.

It's been a few years since I read both Boukreevs and Krakauers books. What I remember is that they are opposing viewpoints over how the events played out during that tragic Everest expedition.

Anotoli took great umbrage with Krakauers version of those events.

Boukreev was later lost to the climbing community by avalanche on Annapurna.

You will love this movie if you are a follower of high altitude climbing Larry.

[Denvek]

On 12/5/2021 at 3:43 AM, Corvinus85 said:

Finished the final season of Lost in Space. Very good ending. Overall the season was a bit weaker on the cool science stuff compared to the previous ones, which also made some of the plots wonkier, but it still had the heart that this show always had. It was really emotional at the end. Not all the characters got a lot of character development, but the ones that I think viewers were hoping for, like Smith and Penny did by the end.

Just finished this myself, and I'd agree about the character development - Grant Kelly did very little to justify his inclusion. But seeing June Lockhart's name as a cameo in one episode led me on a surprising wiki-walk. She's the only original-series actor to cameo in both the 90's movie and the Netflix series - Bill Mumy cameo'd as Real Dr Smith in S1E1 but wasn't in the 90's movie because he wanted to play the grown-up future Will Robinson but they wouldn't let him for some reason. So who did play the grown-up future Will Robinson? Jared Harris

[Zorral]

FYI -- American Gangster (2007) is leaving Netflix at the end of the month.  If one enjoys such films and haven't yet watched this one, and have an NF sub, you might be glad to have checked it out.  This is one of my favorite gangster / cop films, having re-watched it several times over the years.  The source material is excellent, as well as the film's adaptation.

[RumHam]

6 minutes ago, Zorral said:

FYI -- American Gangster (2007) is leaving Netflix at the end of the month.  If one enjoys such films and haven't yet watched this one, and have an NF sub, you might be glad to have checked it out.  This is one of my favorite gangster / cop films, having re-watched it several times over the years.  The source material is excellent, as well as the film's adaptation.

Good movie. It was interesting seeing a different version of Frank Lucas show up in the Sopranos prequel. 

I've been meaning to check out Godfather of Harlem with Forrest Whittaker as Bumpy Johnson. It looks like it got good reviews. I saw it was streaming on something I don't think to use much. Maybe Paramount+?

[Zorral]

6 minutes ago, RumHam said:

Good movie. It was interesting seeing a different version of Frank Lucas show up in the Sopranos prequel. 

I've been meaning to check out Godfather of Harlem with Forrest Whittaker as Bumpy Johnson. It looks like it got good reviews. I saw it was streaming on something I don't think to use much. Maybe Paramount+?

I think I saw the first episode via that Amazon Prime thing of providing first eps in hopes one will, then, subscribe to that service, while AP gets $the hefty share of the fee$.  It looked good.  But how many $ubs can one have? how much can one watch?

I am thinking of going back to NF's dvd service, which I dropped with all the post office mess that began with the shoggoth regime.

[DireWolfSpirit]

Perhaps I'll have to put this in spoilers on the chance readers do not know this.

The thing that really stuck with me about American Gangster was how-

Spoiler

Malcolm X and Farrakhan took so much vitriol over saying it was the U.S. govt that was bringing in the hard drugs that were plaguing the inner cities.

With Frank Lucas help of course, but nonetheless it turned out that it was in fact U.S. military planes that were used to smuggle in the heroin, hash and so forth, often in caskets that were supposed to be soldiers remains.

Further proof that fact can outdo fiction most anytime.

[Annara Snow]

I finished Squid Game last night.

Was the show as good as its hyped to be? Yes in some ways, no in other.

It is great when it comes to thes character stuff about the people playing the game and their backstories in the 'real world'. This was really intense drama with great acting, mysic, directing.  Episodes 2 and 6 were particular highliights, but the character stuff between the players was great throughout.

However, it failed when it tried to explain anything about the framework of it all, the game organizers and why the games were taking place. Their motivations were poorly explained or not explained at all, while 

Spoiler

the spectators/VIPs were cliche rich a-holes. 

When I saw the title of episode 8, "Front Man" - I thought, so this is where it's revealed that the Front Man is the cop's missing brother - this had been obvious for several episodes - but I was expecting some explanation. A flashback would be great, but if not, at least something about his motivations. Is this a Stockholm Syndrome thing? Does he really believe in that crap about 'equali8ty' in the game? Is he bored? Nope, we got nothing. Though I guess they are leaving this for season 2..
Not so with the Host. Now that twist is something that also didn't susprise me at all, since I had been watching some YouTube reactions of the episodes I've seen and some reactors had that theory - and once I learned of that theory, I could see all the signs pointing out to it - and really, who else was gonna be the Host? But it was one of these occasions where I was hoping a theory would not be true, because I didn't think it would really make the story better. So when Gi-hun got the card in the finale, my reacton was "oh well".And then when he told why he started it all, it was all pretty anticlimactic. "I wanna have fun" and "People suck" - this is your entire motivation? Really? Meh.

Overall, it was intense and exciting to watch and had great emotional moments of human drama, and great acting (particularly by the lead, Lee Jung-jae.  But I don't think the show had particularly profound or even coherent things to say about capitalism or society or whatever.

s great as long as it's about the character stuff about the peopleplaying the game and their backstories in the 'real world' - rReally intense drama with great acting, mysic, directing. - but it failed when it tried to explain anything about the framework of it all, the game organizers and why the games were taking place.

[Heartofice]

Yeah I don’t think Squid Game really lived up to the promise of the first couple of episodes. I really wanted it to be a deep allegory for societal inequality. But it mostly tended to forget about it in favour of cool games and tension. 
 

It ended up using capitalism and political themes as a sort of set dressing rather than making any interesting statements.

The VIP bit was so awful, so very awful that it really made me reconsider the entire show, like had I been too blinkered by it because it was Korean to see that the message was simplistic and stupid? Maybe not but the VIPs were so cliched and unimaginative that I really did wonder if the writers weren’t fooling us all

[polishgenius]

Watched No Time to Die. It's fun. Silly, of course, and too long, but if you go in without a stick up your arse, it does the job. Miles better than Spectre.

 

 

Also watching Arcane, which is superb. If it has a flaw it's that some of the dialogue is a little on the nose, but it's not not good, it's just not that snappy or layered/back-and-forthy. Everything else about it is just absolute excelence.