Watch, Watching, Watch -- Keep the change you filthy animal!

[Deadlines? What Deadlines?]

6 hours ago, Veltigar said:

I watched an interesting documentary about 2022 yesterday. Not sure whether anyone else heard about it, but it is called Soylent Green. It's got some really insightful things to say about the climate crisis, inequality, assisted dying and the patriarchy. Definitely would recommend it, but you will definitely be shocked when you discover where the story is headed:

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Soylent Green is people!!! Wake up you sheeple of the world 

Joking aside, for a film out of 1973 it is creepily prescient in my opinion. Their society might be in far greater shambles than ours, but at the moment you could be forgiven in thinking that Soylent Green was correct about the future, but only got the timeframe wrong.

Aside from that seeming predictive power, it is also a damn good film. A bit stilted in the way older pictures usually are, but still damn exciting. I think the fact they played this one straight (They have a pretty good chase scene that is wholly without dialogue. Kind of strange not to have someone quip their way to a gun fight) and were pretty grey with their characters has probably created a picture that was able to stand the test of time far better than more optimistic fare. 

It's also just great to see Charlton Heston in this. It just cracks me up that someone so right-wing they could be elected president of the NRA five times has played in some of the most popular "protest" films of all time (I'm using protest in the broadest sense of the word here).

Just think about it, he has Planet of the Apes (against Nuclear Warfare), Soylent Green (against equality and the climate crisis) and arguably Ben Hur (where, in one of the great jokes of cinema, his character was heavily implied to have been in a homosexual relationship with his antagonist prior to the events depicted in the film. Chuck wasn't told about this and played it straight, while the actor who played his opponent was instructed to channel the jilted lover in his performance ).

 

Love Soylent Green. 

Spoiler

Heston was also active in the civil rights movement back in the day. Aside from the NRA stuff, I'm not sure Heston was ever much of a right winger, even later in life.

Unlike Jon Voight or James Woods, who have kind of gone off the deep end. I can still remember Voight making some silly speech back in 2008 where he compared Obama's rise to Julius Caesar (it wasn't) and that, like Caesar, he was going to take over the republic (he should have). 

[Annara Snow]

4 hours ago, Ran said:

Her manic frivolous babbling in the back of the car while high, to the point that even the normally extremely chill Fez gets angry at her = manic pixie drug addict. 

Obviously, she's extremely bipolar and self-medicates, but as I noted for last season it would be a very tough slog with her character if she's just swinging wildly from mania to self-medicated stupor over and over again. The most compelling material for her last season was her relationship to Fezco and her relationship with Jules, and that needs her to be somewhat nearer an even keel -- while threatening to tip one way or the other as a constant danger -- for there to be fulfilling dramatic weight to those relationships, personally.

As you may or may not know already, Manic Pixie Dream Girl - before it got overused to the point it doesn't mean anything anymore, kind of like Mary Sue - referred to a character type, the underdeveloped female characters that served as a love interest for the main character who gets him to be more "free" and were not really fleshed out, beyond idealized quirkiness and cutesiness/hotness. There's not a single thing about that that fits or resembles Rue even remotely.

[Ran]

1 minute ago, Annara Snow said:

As you may or may not know already, Manic Pixie Dream Girl

Ah, I said she was a manic pixie drug addict, not a manic pixie dream girl. Different thing!

[Iskaral Pust]

We’re rewatching The Witcher S1 before watching S2.  Neither of us could remember anything much about the arc of S1.  The world-building/setting may be ridiculously thin but the humor & dialogue are very strong for a fantasy series.  I wish WoT could employ some of these writers.

[Leofric]

Really enjoying Season 2 of Beforeigners, episode 4 dropped this morning on HBO Max.    I just spent the last month reading the Harry Hole series by Jo Nesbø, so really like seeing a version of the police in Oslo and recognizing some of the city locations from descriptions in the books.  

[Cas Stark]

The Lost Daughter.  I liked it, it was very grim.  This is probably the performance Coleman should have won an Oscar for, not The Favorite.  

Guy Ritchie's King Arthur movie.  Totally bananas, might eventually achieve a cult following in the bad but somehow entertaining category.

[Veltigar]

On 1/13/2022 at 10:19 AM, RumHam said:

Heston was also in the 2001 remake of Planet of the Apes which I assume was a protest against the idea of remaking movies.

Wow, he was in the remake? who did he play?

23 hours ago, Deadlines? What Deadlines? said:

Love Soylent Green. 

  Reveal hidden contents

Heston was also active in the civil rights movement back in the day. Aside from the NRA stuff, I'm not sure Heston was ever much of a right winger, even later in life.

Unlike Jon Voight or James Woods, who have kind of gone off the deep end. I can still remember Voight making some silly speech back in 2008 where he compared Obama's rise to Julius Caesar (it wasn't) and that, like Caesar, he was going to take over the republic (he should have). 

You love Soylent Green? I hope you know that 

Spoiler

It is made of people, you cannibal 

 

That is surprising info about Chuck. I remember all the memes and the out-of-our-cold-dead-hands compilations, but that part of his life completely passed me by. Thanks for pointing it out, I'll read up on it.

 

[Deadlines? What Deadlines?]

26 minutes ago, Veltigar said:

Wow, he was in the remake? who did he play?

You love Soylent Green? I hope you know that 

  Hide contents

It is made of people, you cannibal 

 

That is surprising info about Chuck. I remember all the memes and the out-of-our-cold-dead-hands compilations, but that part of his life completely passed me by. Thanks for pointing it out, I'll read up on it.

 

He played Thade's dying father.

I know what it's made of. Nom nom nom nom nom nom...

[Zorral]

2 hours ago, Cas Stark said:

Guy Ritchie's King Arthur movie.  Totally bananas, might eventually achieve a cult following in the bad but somehow entertaining category.

[Derfel Cadarn]

https://deadline.com/2022/01/fx-greenlights-latest-elmore-leonard-1234912732/
 

Justified coming back!

[WarGalley]

Recently re-subscribed to Netflix and finished The Witcher S2. I remember this being pretty much on par with S1 and didn't see much of the improvement that others felt about it. A lot of the show felt like cheesy, 1:1 character dialogue that you would see in a CW series. I rolled my eyes in a lot of the scenes involving the mages who seem far more preoccupied by politics than anything involving magic.

Spoiler

I strongly feel the show's strength is in the stories about the monsters, curses and magic of this world. The first episode of the season, with it's twisted tale on Beauty and the Beast, was my favorite -- and I think I preferred those types of episodes versus the "main quest" of the Ciri and Nilfgaard storylines. Every scene outside of monsters and curses felt like characters having teenage dialogue. The veteran Witcher having a macho pissing contest with an orphan 12 year old Ciri was the worst. Also, Yennefer allying herself with the Black Knight even in escape and pursuit stretched the imagination. She was hunted down like a dog and had a baby killed in her arms a few weeks/months(?) ago by this guy. 

Any who, I got through the show fairly quickly so it did grab me, and I'll still be checking out S3.

On to Squid Game next. As Iooked at the shows that have accumulated on Netflix since rejoining a couple of weeks ago, I decided that I certainly want to catch up on Narcos, Ozark, Arcane and The Last Kingdom. My desire for any content after that however starts dwindling rapidly and the more I look at the HBOMax catalogue, the more attractive it looks for longer term subscription.

[Corvinus85]

1 hour ago, WarGalley said:

Recently re-subscribed to Netflix and finished The Witcher S2. I remember this being pretty much on par with S1 and didn't see much of the improvement that others felt about it. A lot of the show felt like cheesy, 1:1 character dialogue that you would see in a CW series. I rolled my eyes in a lot of the scenes involving the mages who seem far more preoccupied by politics than anything involving magic.

  Hide contents

I strongly feel the show's strength is in the stories about the monsters, curses and magic of this world. The first episode of the season, with it's twisted tale on Beauty and the Beast, was my favorite -- and I think I preferred those types of episodes versus the "main quest" of the Ciri and Nilfgaard storylines. Every scene outside of monsters and curses felt like characters having teenage dialogue. The veteran Witcher having a macho pissing contest with an orphan 12 year old Ciri was the worst. Also, Yennefer allying herself with the Black Knight even in escape and pursuit stretched the imagination. She was hunted down like a dog and had a baby killed in her arms a few weeks/months(?) ago by this guy. 

Any who, I got through the show fairly quickly so it did grab me, and I'll still be checking out S3.

On to Squid Game next. As Iooked at the shows that have accumulated on Netflix since rejoining a couple of weeks ago, I decided that I certainly want to catch up on Narcos, Ozark, Arcane and The Last Kingdom. My desire for any content after that however starts dwindling rapidly and the more I look at the HBOMax catalogue, the more attractive it looks for longer term subscription.

I think you're confusing Yennifer with Ciri.

Spoiler

The Black Knight didn't hunt Yen like a dog. Up until the battle at Sodden, Yen hardly interacted with Nilfgaard. And the only baby that died in her arms was the daughter of one of the northern kings who had sent a mage assassin after his own wife.

 

[WarGalley]

55 minutes ago, Corvinus85 said:

I think you're confusing Yennifer with Ciri.

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The Black Knight didn't hunt Yen like a dog. Up until the battle at Sodden, Yen hardly interacted with Nilfgaard. And the only baby that died in her arms was the daughter of one of the northern kings who had sent a mage assassin after his own wife.

 

Oh I thought 

Spoiler

The mage assassin and the Black Knight were the same.

 

[Deadlines? What Deadlines?]

10 hours ago, Cas Stark said:

Guy Ritchie's King Arthur movie.  Totally bananas, might eventually achieve a cult following in the bad but somehow entertaining category.

The first half is interesting but it completely falls apart in the second. I remember reading something about some re-shoot/editing drama behind that film. 

[Nictarion]

Well Station Eleven ended up being one of the best standalone seasons of a tv show I’ve seen in quite some time. There was not a single weak episode, or even a wasted scene. Just fantastic from start to finish. 

Spoiler

I could barely focus on anything other than Kirsten and Jeevan reuniting during the finale, and it didn’t disappoint. 

 

[Scott_N]

1 minute ago, Nictarion said:

Well Station Eleven ended up being one of the best standalone seasons of a tv show I’ve seen in quite some time. There was not a single weak episode, or even a wasted scene. Just fantastic from start to finish. 

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I could barely focus on anything other than Kirsten and Jeevan reuniting during the finale, and it didn’t disappoint. 

 

Couldn't agree more. Great, great TV. Probably the best show I've seen since Chernobyl.

[Scott_N]

Just noticed a Ray Donovan film is out. I had no idea one was even in the making. Anyone seen it and, if so, is it a worthwhile effort? I liked the show but last couple of seasons weren't great.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

2 hours ago, Nictarion said:

Well Station Eleven ended up being one of the best standalone seasons of a tv show I’ve seen in quite some time. There was not a single weak episode, or even a wasted scene. Just fantastic from start to finish. 

  Reveal hidden contents

I could barely focus on anything other than Kirsten and Jeevan reuniting during the finale, and it didn’t disappoint. 

 

I'm only on episode eight, but it certainly is an incredibly unique show. The premise is bonkers and could have easily failed, and yet, it's magical. Definitely going to binge the rest before your orange kitties play tomorrow afternoon. 

[BigFatCoward]

15 hours ago, Derfel Cadarn said:

https://deadline.com/2022/01/fx-greenlights-latest-elmore-leonard-1234912732/
 

Justified coming back!

While I loved it. Not sure I want it back without the same supporting cast. Though its possible for a few cameos. 

[Iskaral Pust]

I watched Arcane (S1?) by myself over several weeks.  Neither my wife nor son were interested.  Very good steam-punk art design, animation and soundtrack, and reasonably good voice acting.  The characters and central plot are very YA/emo, and the two main arcs are poorly connected.  Similar to Peaky Blinders and other punk-toned dramas, we’re supposed to feel bad for parasitic characters who cause death and mayhem around them, but feel anguished that it brings them negative consequences.