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

[IlyaP]

9 hours ago, Deadlines? What Deadlines? said:

It's amazing how WW84 has disappeared down the memory hole.

The only thing I remember with any fondness from that movie is that stunning 15 minute opening sequence of young Diana. The direction, the music, the acting, it's just such a rousing, glorious, astonishing bit of filmmaking. 

And then the rest of the movie happened.

[IlyaP]

That said, on the WW84 topic: Hans Zimmer's score for this movie is a masterpiece and an absolute delight, full of upbeat major chords, Horner-like progressions, and a return to an almost 1990's era Zimmer. The score is truly the highlight of the film. 

[Toth]

Have started watching Zelenskyy's old show "Servant of the People", even though it feels slightly strange doing this with the context of what is going on in Ukraine.

Granted... I'm three episodes in and I'm not quite sure the show manages to sell itself to me. It is very... one-note. "Look how ridiculously corrupt everything and everyone is!" kinda wears thin when it is the basis for just about every single joke. While the situational comedy of Vasiliy getting funneled through a ludicrous system in which everyone tries their damnedest keeping him from making any real decisions that might interrupt their money wasting schemes does get some good jokes in and I especially liked his dream sequences ("Ukraine should be a rich country, they are the leading oil exporters of the world!" - "Sunflower oil..." - "Oh... ugh... well, that is good as well, I'm sure..."), I must say I can't stand his family. Mostly, again, because they are so damn one-note. They start out not respecting Vasiliy at all and giving him shit constantly for how much of a failure he is, then after his presidency starts they become grovelling lickspittles who gleefully bath in getting free stuff in return for promises they can't make.

In a way, I'm reminded of two shows. First "Pastewka", a German cringe comedy that I never liked. Because the family's side of things is just that: Trying to make you cringe about how pathetic these people are dealing with the situation. Second... in a way, the show does try to make them look like the Bundys in "Married... with children", what with their "poor" background (they are actually pretty firmly middle-class, but still behave as if they are dirt poor) and backstabbing nature. But the Bundys at least had very witty banter and strongly defined attitudes that frequently clashed with each other, but also had moments in which good qualities shone through and they stick together. Vasiliys family in "Servant of the People" all somehow act as one unit of easily corrupted spineless cowards. In the second episode his sister comes to visit and I hoped her introduction means something new, but she... starts out giving him shit, then learns he's the president now and after the first shock goes along with the rest of the family in grifting expensive clothes, which they do all together again. Why did they even bother introducing her?

I'm wondering, given how his students seem to be the only sympathetic people in his life, whether it would have been fun to make his whole class the government, with the students becoming ministers and all being this mess together.

[Heartofice]

3 hours ago, lacuna said:

I wonder, is the decline in streaming subscriber numbers adjusted for service being suspended in Russia? Or are we only talking post-pandemic dropouts? (Or are they just a bit shit?)

I'd be interested in seeing if similar drops in numbers were happening to other services, or at least slowing of growth. Pretty sure there were big surges in numbers for Netflix during Covid, and now everyone is suffering from the subsequent squeeze people are cutting back on subscription costs. Is it affecting Netflix disproportionally, or is it just news because it's Netflix.

Personally Netflix is probably the last service I would cancel, because it generally tends to pump out something new just as I'm thinking of cancelling. It does have a much bigger and better library than basically anything else I can get here, even if it's often hard to find anything actually 'good'

[Nictarion]

This thread is probably more appropriate for all the streaming talk. 

https://asoiaf.westeros.org/index.php?/topic/155508-streaming-services-business-market-service-not-content-focused/page/8/

 

[Zorral]

‘We Own This City’ Brings George Pelecanos Back to Baltimore
The crime novelist broke into TV as a writer on “The Wire.” For his first stint as showrunner, he wanted to get the gang back together one more time.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/22/arts/television/george-pelecanos-we-own-this-city.html

Quote

 

... Based on Justin Fenton’s nonfiction book about Baltimore police corruption, the series is the first Pelecanos has overseen as showrunner, and it returns him to the Baltimore streets and back alleys that provided his entry into the world of television 20 years ago, as a writer on groundbreaking crime epic, “The Wire.”

Simon, who created “The Wire,” suggested that “We Own This City” serves as a sort of coda to that beloved series, which aired on HBO from 2002 to 2008. By the end of “The Wire,” Simon had become alarmed by the level of dysfunction in a police department he had covered closely — and sometimes approvingly — first as a Baltimore Sun reporter and then as a TV writer.

“It was becoming increasingly brutal, with mass incarceration and the obsession with drug stats,” he said in a phone interview. “But even that was a long day’s journey to get to guys literally robbing drug dealers and then putting the drugs back on the street.”

“We Own This City” tracks an elite squad of Baltimore police, led by Jon Bernthal’s Sgt. Wayne Jenkins (based on a real officer), who present an earnest protect-and-serve image to the public while engaging in increasingly audacious criminal enterprises on the side. But as in “The Wire,” which famously expanded to explore the breakdown of multiple civic institutions, the new series’s ambitions are broader than they might initially seem. “We didn’t want to do a show that was just about dirty cops,” Pelecanos said.

“We saw this as a way to talk about the larger issues of policing in America,” he explained. “We wanted to talk about the why of it: How does a system of policing both allow and encourage corruption?”

On a more personal level, Pelecanos saw “We Own This City” as a chance to reunite some of the crew and writers from “The Wire” one more time, before they all “age out” of being able to spend 12 to 14 hours a day on a set.

This seems to be a preoccupation for the Washington, D.C., native, who still lives in the area with his wife of over 35 years, Emily. At 65, Pelecanos still looks youthful, despite some gray in his beard and a bit of weather to his deep, lightly southern-accented voice. But more than once over the course of an hourlong interview, he wondered aloud whether he was running out time to get together with old friends and make television.

This is perhaps owed partly to the fact that Pelecanos got a late start as a TV writer, just as he got a late start as a novelist. He attended the University of Maryland, initially studying then abandoning journalism because “I felt hemmed in by all the rules.” Inspired by what was happening in cinema in the 1970s, Pelecanos transferred to the film department, where “I found my family,” he said. ....

 

 

[sologdin]

big action set piece because, "superhero". This would explain why...

Spoiler

it fits the rule that imprisoning a villain without neutralizing the conditions that made them effective enhances their danger. likely a j-curve here. cf. ledger's joker, several thor villains, donofrio, ian mckellan.

 

[Zorral]

Mikhail Vasenkov Dies at 79; His Spy Ring Inspired ‘The Americans’
He and his wife were among 10 Soviet sleeper agents who blended into American society before being exposed and deported in 2010. The TV series sprung from the episode.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/21/world/europe/mikhail-vasenkov-dead.html?

 

[Deadlines? What Deadlines?]

12 hours ago, IlyaP said:

That said, on the WW84 topic: Hans Zimmer's score for this movie is a masterpiece and an absolute delight, full of upbeat major chords, Horner-like progressions, and a return to an almost 1990's era Zimmer. The score is truly the highlight of the film. 

The films prologue was fine. The only thing I remember about the score is Adagio in D minor, which has jumped the shark at this point, and Beautiful Lie. The rest of it didn't make much of an impression on me TBH. 

There was a lot going on in that movie. 

[Deadlines? What Deadlines?]

7 hours ago, sologdin said:

big action set piece because, "superhero". This would explain why...

  Hide contents

it fits the rule that imprisoning a villain without neutralizing the conditions that made them effective enhances their danger. likely a j-curve here. cf. ledger's joker, several thor villains, donofrio, ian mckellan.

 

That would still be the case if they ended the film at the scene I was talking about. In the case of the Joker and Thor villains, they don't get captured after what could reasonably be the films natural climax. 

[dbunting]

10 hours ago, Zorral said:

Mikhail Vasenkov Dies at 79; His Spy Ring Inspired ‘The Americans’
He and his wife were among 10 Soviet sleeper agents who blended into American society before being exposed and deported in 2010. The TV series sprung from the episode.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/21/world/europe/mikhail-vasenkov-dead.html?

 

Ok, I didn't know that was based on real life, makes me like the series even more! I watched it last year so I didn't do the normal deep dive I would've done had I been watching it as it was released.

[IlyaP]

5 hours ago, Deadlines? What Deadlines? said:

The films prologue was fine. The only thing I remember about the score is Adagio in D minor, which has jumped the shark at this point, and Beautiful Lie. The rest of it didn't make much of an impression on me TBH. 

Wasn't that in BvS and not WW84?

[IlyaP]

1 hour ago, dbunting said:

Ok, I didn't know that was based on real life, makes me like the series even more! I watched it last year so I didn't do the normal deep dive I would've done had I been watching it as it was released.

My only warning: the really really bad Russian spoken by Kerri Russell is wince-inducing for those of us that are native speakers. 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

33 minutes ago, IlyaP said:

Wasn't that in BvS and not WW84?

Who cares? Both films are completely forgettable. Might have happened in Aquaman for all I know.

[IlyaP]

39 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Who cares? Both films are completely forgettable. Might have happened in Aquaman for all I know.

Aquaman? Wasn't that the one with Daniel Radcliffe where he played Gandalf the Space Jedi?  

(Somewhere, a fanboy is tearing his hair out.)

[Deadlines? What Deadlines?]

1 hour ago, IlyaP said:

Wasn't that in BvS and not WW84?

Beautiful Lie was repurposed for the climax of WW84

39 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Who cares? Both films are completely forgettable.

not even remotely forgettable. 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

2 minutes ago, IlyaP said:

Aquaman? Wasn't that the one with Daniel Radcliffe where he played Gandalf the Space Jedi?  

(Somewhere, a fanboy is tearing his hair out.)

I would have gone with a Swiss Army Man reference myself.

2 minutes ago, Deadlines? What Deadlines? said:

not even remotely forgettable. 

Because they sucked that much?

[IlyaP]

1 minute ago, Tywin et al. said:

I would have gone with a Swiss Army Man reference myself.

Ooh that's a good one! Damn, I wish I'd thought of that!

[Deadlines? What Deadlines?]

38 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Because they sucked that much?

One of them does; though in its own way its still kind of amazeballs. 

[IlyaP]

While we're talking about Batman - this frelling RULES.