Watch, Watched, Watching: Mr and Mrs Smith and Other Famous Hits

[Ran]

1 hour ago, Tywin et al. said:

Debatable. It's not as violent, but still violent compared to most places here,

It's in the upper quintile of most violent cities in the U.S., it's true, although it's not the most violent city in Florida (that's probably Homestead or Riviera Beach)

1 hour ago, Tywin et al. said:

and holy shit has the corruption been turned up to 11.

I feel like Miami is no more corrupt than it was in the past, and is probably less corrupt than it was in the 80s when narcos were bringing in drug money by the trunkful to banks with police escorts on their payroll, it's just that it's much harder to get away with corruption unnoticed these days. Not that people don't keep trying.

Re: accents, Manny's actor, Steven Bauer (aka Esteban Ernesto Echevarría Samson) is Cuban and so his accent is what Tony "ought" to sound like. That said, there are members of my family love quoting Tony Montana, strangely exaggerated accent and all. 

@Fez

Yeah, Akira is amazing. Have you seen any of Satoshi Kon's films? Paprika or Perfect Blue might be up your alley, if you haven't seen them. I expect you're familiar with Ghost in the Shell, Studio Ghibli, and the other more well-known-in-the-west animes.

 

[Fez]

3 minutes ago, Ran said:

 

@Fez

Yeah, Akira is amazing. Have you seen any of Satoshi Kon's films? Paprika or Perfect Blue might be up your alley, if you haven't seen them. I expect you're familiar with Ghost in the Shell, Studio Ghibli, and the other more well-known-in-the-west animes.

 

I haven't; thanks for the rec! 

Yeah, I've seen most of the "well known to Western audiences" anime over the years. GitS, Ghibli stuff, Cowboy Bebop, Mobile Suit Gundam Wing, DBZ, etc.

[Deadlines? What Deadlines?]

58 minutes ago, Fez said:

I know about 30 years late to the party here, but I've had Akira stuck in my head since I saw it yesterday.

It. just. looked. so. cool. 

And I've seen some anime in my day already; I'm not like an American in the early-90s who had this as their first exposure. But even with the anime knowledge base I do have (which is far from complete), I'm still blown away by it.

Also, seeing things I did recognize from elsewhere, and knowing that Akira is where it originated from, was really cool too.

Check out Redline. I hear someone uploaded to to youtube. Then check out the production history. Madness. 

Goofier than Akira but lots of fun. 

ETA: My nieces claim to be massive anime fans and I had to tell them what "Akira" is. I think they've seen it now. 

[KingintheNorth4]

I watched King Richard last night, and Will Smith was definitely deserved his Oscar, minus the slap. 

[Deadlines? What Deadlines?]

3 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

His sunglasses speak for themself.

OK, not exactly, "propelled into the stratosphere". The movie actually lost a shit load of moneys.

The tagline on the poster was, "Some Fantasies Go Too Far." Ah, the '90's. Some nameless studio exec. with cocaine on his lapel came up with that one. He later died in an autoerotic asphyxiation accident. 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

1 hour ago, Ran said:

It's in the upper quintile of most violent cities in the U.S., it's true, although it's not the most violent city in Florida (that's probably Homestead or Riviera Beach)

Wouldn't it be fair to say that Miami is technically broken up into a ton of smaller municipalities, so the numbers won't accurately reflect what's taking place in the portion of South FL that is associated with Miami? 

Quote

I feel like Miami is no more corrupt than it was in the past, and is probably less corrupt than it was in the 80s when narcos were bringing in drug money by the trunkful to banks with police escorts on their payroll, it's just that it's much harder to get away with corruption unnoticed these days. Not that people don't keep trying.

Have to disagree. The corruption is happening in broad daylight and everyone just accepts it. There's just less concentrated organized crime. Instead today there's a lot of random violence, all while the entire area is walking, talking real estate and Medicare fraud hotbed. Alaska has bridges to nowhere, Miami has empty multimillion dollar condo buildings. 

Great place or Oligarchs to park their money. I never got to see what's called Little Moscow while I was living down there for a brief period. 

Quote

Re: accents, Manny's actor, Steven Bauer (aka Esteban Ernesto Echevarría Samson) is Cuban and so his accent is what Tony "ought" to sound like. That said, there are members of my family love quoting Tony Montana, strangely exaggerated accent and all. 

He balances out all the NYC Italian and Jewish actors they passed of as Latinos. Some of the names are good for a laugh.

[Zorral]

5 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

Debatable. It's not as violent, but still violent compared to most places here, and holy shit has the corruption been turned up to 11.

It is both more violent and more corrupt.  So many people we know have moved out, many of them selling up and buying houses in the old dying industrial towns upstate, which now are as expensive as anywhere else.

It's still a primary drug import depot from both Africa and South America.

The cops are a big part of the violence and corruption, but meaning they target the kind of people who are leaving.  BLM and the fascists -- they actively are hostile to the 'liberal anti-racists."  Actively threatening them.  One friend was forced to watch as a cop keyed her car.

There are reasons Miami is a favorite destination for ousted rulers.  They are right at home.

Also, you know rising sea levels and flooding are good reasons to get the hell outta there.

As of today a Cuban musician, friend for decades, staunch supporter of Cuba and could never ever leave Cuba -- she arrived at the border, defected and is now in Albuquerque with her husband. The Cuba migration isn't halting bit, jerkwaddies.  They didn't burn down the house Bolton, etc., they left and came here.

 

[Teng Ai Hui]

Lately, I have been binge-watching Chuck.  I just finished s02e08, which was the end of a 3-parter about someone who got between Chuck and Sarah.  It’s not a top tier show, but it is a lot of fun to watch. 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

Is anyone else watching HBO's Winning Time? I know most people here aren't basketball or Lakers fans, but this show is legit good. 

[DireWolfSpirit]

Watched the season of "Plot against America".

A fictional WW2 era where Lindbergh is elected the U.S. President.

It may be remindful to some of "Man in the High Castle".

[briantw]

I've been rewatching The Shield.  It's as good as ever.  Probably my number two show ever behind The Wire.  Seasons four and five are absolutely incredible.  Glenn Close and Anthony Anderson crush in season four and Forest Whitaker carries season five.  Walton Goggins is fantastic as always.  

This show is uniquely fun to rewatch because you know it's all building to the most satisfying ending in television history.  It's not a happy ending, but people get what they deserve.  

[Nictarion]

42 minutes ago, briantw said:

I've been rewatching The Shield.  It's as good as ever.  Probably my number two show ever behind The Wire.  Seasons four and five are absolutely incredible.  Glenn Close and Anthony Anderson crush in season four and Forest Whitaker carries season five.  Walton Goggins is fantastic as always.  

This show is uniquely fun to rewatch because you know it's all building to the most satisfying ending in television history.  It's not a happy ending, but people get what they deserve.  

It’s so, so good. I’m still slowly making my way though my X-Files rewatch, and the episode from S2 that CCH Pounder was in really made me want to watch The Shield again. 

[Ran]

3 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

Is anyone else watching HBO's Winning Time? I know most people here aren't basketball or Lakers fans, but this show is legit good. 

I've been watching. It's fun. I think it's a bit scattershot, visually-speaking, but it's fun, and the casting is pretty near perfect.

[DireWolfSpirit]

Death on the Nile

20 hours ago, Spockydog said:

I enjoyed Death on the Nile. I thought it looked really good. Egypt was all CGI?

The credits included thanks to Egyptian film crew and a Cairo unit, the involvement of some 13000 people in the making of this. I don't think it's fair to categorize all of Egypt as CGI.

Anywho I enjoyed it, especially the stroll through Ramses II's magnificent ancient tomb. CGI makes such scenes possible for the masses that will never get to take a Nile cruise. I was unbothered by that, I rather appreciated it.

[Heartofice]

9 minutes ago, DireWolfSpirit said:

Death on the Nile

The credits included thanks to Egyptian film crew and a Cairo unit, the involvement of some 13000 people in the making of this. I don't think it's fair to categorize all of Egypt as CGI.

Anywho I enjoyed it, especially the stroll through Ramses II's magnificent ancient tomb. CGI makes such scenes possible for the masses that will never get to take a Nile cruise. I was unbothered by that, I rather appreciated it.

There were scenes which were filmed in Egypt, I noticed them at the time because they looked a lot less fake. But they were the equivalent of putting footage from natural history shows into the movie. I mean showing footage of farmers in flooded fields and lovely shots of the nile is great, but become suddenly jarring when you put them up against some obviously CG shots of the river with hotels  on it with CGI boats, with the camera moving in ways that are only possible inside a computer. That shit really irritates me in modern movie making.

[Isis]

22 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

I'm not sure it would have been practical to shoot it on location. Do you realize how expensive that would have been? And it may not have looked any better.

Personally I thought the film looked great for the most part even if the CGI at times was obvious. 

There was a lot of 'framing' in the film - a person or people being symmetrically posed against items in the background or foreground but it happened so often it became too heavy-handed for me. Compare this with Spencer which was the last thing I watched before this, which uses the same technique just once in the film where is very striking. As I said, I did enjoy the film. I just found some of the visuals were a distraction.

Yesterday we went to the cinema for the first time since February 2020 (Parasite/The Lighthouse) to see The Batman. We moved house a year ago and now have a ten screen cinema literally two minutes walk from us and we had awesome reclining seats. I almost changed my mind about going when I saw that the film was 176 minutes long. Glad I didn't. I have to say that it didn't drag for me. Unlike the completely notable length of The Dark Knight (a great film, but MY GOD that final third really felt long the first time in the cinema).

Spoiler

I thought this film looked good; dark and moody without being too dark to see anything. Loved that film noir/Bladerunner feel of having it rain ALL THE TIME. There were lots of memorable cinematic shots in this film which made me feel like YES, THIS IS WHAT I COME TO THE CINEMA TO SEE. I also enjoyed the soundscape and soundtrack. The 'Batman leitmotif' (the echoey chiming) reminded me a bit of a western? Having Catwoman be more of a lost/failed human in the same way that Batman is, rather than being reduced to a sex kitten in leather is much more interesting on the screen. I thought that R Patz did a pretty good job and I enjoyed his slightly emo floppy haired Bruce. Not fully sold on Andy Serkis... lots to think about basically. If the cinema wasn't so stupidly expensive here I would go and see it again. (I will just spoiler all of this in case I ruin anything for anyone)

 

 

[Heartofice]

This 

This does not look great.

[briantw]

7 hours ago, Nictarion said:

It’s so, so good. I’m still slowly making my way though my X-Files rewatch, and the episode from S2 that CCH Pounder was in really made me want to watch The Shield again. 

Also gave us this amazing moment from Always Sunny:

 

[Veltigar]

Finished the final episode of Peaky Blinders the other day. I felt like this season was somewhat of a return to form, but they wasted all the goodwill they build on that final episode. It's such an inconsequential episode that it validates all the people who bailed on this series after season two. 

There are some big moments, but they lack dramatic weight because the series just does not allow itself to linger. Nor does it believe in proper set up. The only thing Peaky Blinders cares about is serving up a succession of pretty images. To it credit, it does that tremendously well. I found some of the sequences overwhelmingly beautiful in all their ghoulish splendor, but they do make everything feel rather like a very expensive music video instead of a proper series.

It also felt very much like fan service and I am 

Spoiler

not convinced that they are willing to stop this show. I felt the ending was a real cop out, giving Tommy a way out which was neither coherent, realistic or earned in any way. 

Again I am struck by the great amount of money spend on ill-considered and half-assed screenplays.

On 4/10/2022 at 4:10 PM, Tywin et al. said:

It works because Miami is the most awesome and insane city in the US. And to be clear, the film isn't an exaggeration. That's what it was like in the 80's. 

A friend of mine is going to visit it end of this month. Do I need to warn her?

23 hours ago, Deadlines? What Deadlines? said:

Who among us hasn't had this feeling at least once? C'mon, people.

 I want to hear which Al Pacino gangster performance everyone prefers 

Spoiler

Cue all the hipsters choosing Carlito

 

[Veltigar]

2 hours ago, Heartofice said:

This 

This does not look great.

I feel like you are being too kind with that description. I guess it's a visual style choice. A bit like stuff like 300 or Spartacus chose to amp up the fakeness to eleven to signal that you are watching something special?