Watched, Watched, Watching: Saltier Things Part One

[Ran]

 

40 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

I've heard this criticism a lot, but I'm not sure a different marketing strategy would have helped it at the box office or improved people's overall thoughts on the film. 

Maybe not, but the people who went to see it would have been better prepared if it was sold as an almost-anthropological window into the worldview of the Norse, where the beauty of it is its success in realizing this alien, lost culture and way of engaging with the world. Much of the disappointment I've read rested in people who thought they were getting Viking John Wick or Braveheart, which is what the trailers sold it as.

 

[dbunting]

Had time to kill and so I watched The Lost CIty. It is so badly a rip off of Romancing the Stone from the 80's. Unfortunately I liked Romancing a lot more than this one, but hey, I killed a little time!

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

1 hour ago, Ran said:

 

Maybe not, but the people who went to see it would have been better prepared if it was sold as an almost-anthropological window into the worldview of the Norse, where the beauty of it is its success in realizing this alien, lost culture and way of engaging with the world. Much of the disappointment I've read rested in people who thought they were getting Viking John Wick or Braveheart, which is what the trailers sold it as.

 

I get those criticisms, I'm just not sure what else they could have done. Was Gladiator, for example, marketed that differently? That's the movie I keep coming back to when trying to find a relative comp about a period piece that at first glance seemed like an ultra violent action film, but had a lot more to it that included covering a good amount history with the action serving as more of an entry point rather than the thrust of the movie.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

20 minutes ago, dbunting said:

Had time to kill and so I watched The Lost CIty. It is so badly a rip off of Romancing the Stone from the 80's. Unfortunately I liked Romancing a lot more than this one, but hey, I killed a little time!

So many people have referenced this movie when discussing The Lost City. Take it I should skip the new film and check this one out instead?

[Iskaral Pust]

3 hours ago, dbunting said:

Had time to kill and so I watched The Lost CIty. It is so badly a rip off of Romancing the Stone from the 80's. Unfortunately I liked Romancing a lot more than this one, but hey, I killed a little time!

I caught a few minutes of this as my wife was watching.  It looked like it could sweep the Razzies this year.  Awards buzz already!  I was surprised that a producer would pay for Sandra Bullock and Channing Tatum but apparently invest zero effort in any dimension of the movie.  It would only make sense if it was intended to be a cheesy parody of Romancing The Stone but I didn’t spot any humorous send-ups.

[dbunting]

2 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

So many people have referenced this movie when discussing The Lost City. Take it I should skip the new film and check this one out instead?

Well I haven't watched it since the late 80's or early 90's so I am not sure how well it's aged but, yeah I think so.  The Jewel of the Nile was a sequel but don't remember if that was as good.

[dbunting]

Just now, Iskaral Pust said:

I caught a few minutes of this as my wife was watching.  It looked like it could sweep the Razzies this year.  Awards buzz already!  I was surprised that a producer would pay for Sandra Bullock and Channing Tatum but apparently invest zero effort in any dimension of the movie.  It would only make sense if it was intended to be a cheesy parody of Romancing The Stone but I didn’t spot any humorous send-ups.

Sandra Bullock, Channing Tatum and Brad Pitt are all in this movie. And Harry Potter!

[Iskaral Pust]

3 minutes ago, dbunting said:

Sandra Bullock, Channing Tatum and Brad Pitt are all in this movie. And Harry Potter!

That’s right, Daniel Radcliffe was in it too.  Does he qualify as a marquee name or expensive casting outside of Potterverse?  I didn’t watch enough to see Brad Pitt.  Was this just a poorly conceived Bullock vehicle?  Her last few romcoms seemed terrible IIRC, considering she used to be box office gold.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

41 minutes ago, dbunting said:

Well I haven't watched it since the late 80's or early 90's so I am not sure how well it's aged but, yeah I think so.  The Jewel of the Nile was a sequel but don't remember if that was as good.

The trailer seemed interesting enough. I've never gotten Michael Douglas as a sex symbol though, but the man got throat cancer I guess the best way possible so 

34 minutes ago, Iskaral Pust said:

That’s right, Daniel Radcliffe was in it too.  Does he qualify as a marquee name or expensive casting outside of Potterverse?  I didn’t watch enough to see Brad Pitt.  Was this just a poorly conceived Bullock vehicle?  Her last few romcoms seemed terrible IIRC, considering she used to be box office gold.

Radcliffe probably isn't viewed as a marquee anymore. Post-HP the only movie he's in that I'd recommend is Swiss Army Man and that's not for everyone (I am curious about the Weird Al biopic though).

Bullock's run over the last decade and a half has been shit. Gravity was good, and The Proposal was okay if you like romcons, but other than that she hasn't done much lately unless you actually liked Bird Box. I'm rather surprised she only has 59 acting credits. I could have sworn she worked a lot more than that.

[Heartofice]

I always assumed I had seen The Godfather Trilogy, but on re-watch it seems I hadn't. I must be getting old.

I know I'd attempted to watch parts 1 & 2 on a number of occasions, but it's clear I never got more than an hour through the second more before. That is the curse of trying to watch these things on tv late at night.

But now I have streaming I can come back to them and watch them in my own time, it makes it far easier to digest. 

My main thought right now is, the first 2 movies are brilliant, but the entire time I'm thinking  'This would have been better as a tv show', such is a world we live in now. They do feel like precursors to prestige tv that we have at the moment, in fact the pacing and length of them almost don't work as movies at all. The fact that I know I always found the length of part 2 quite off-putting (and it still has Intermission in the middle!) is maybe a sign that we can only imagine what the tv show would have been.

And on that, while 2 is clearly amazing, it does have some odd pacing and editorial issues. Towards the end it tends to just jump to events, seemingly out of nowhere, only explaining what happened after 10 or so mins. The Sentate Committee scene just seemed to 'happen' and a few other scenes towards the end felt kinda jumpy with no lead in. Either way though, its just incredible how good Pacino is here, he doesn't do much 'acting' in the way he does in later years, but he's mesmorising. 

Finally I always thought the hate towards part 3 was overblown, but wow it feels like a step down when you've just finished part 2. The first alarm bell was when 3 minutes in I see George Hamilton's face in a crowd. Then Andy Garcia turns up and a I recognise a cast of mid level 90's actors from straight to video movies I'd seen. And Sofia Coppella... oh. 

It's blasphemy to even think they could remake it and that it could be good, but it would be so good as a 7 season tv show! 

[Cas Stark]

I've always thought that Godfather was Pacino's best performance, so interior and restrained.  After that, he became AL PACINO, and while he's still great in many roles, he's been chewing scenery ever since.

[Corvinus85]

I've watched the last Bond movie, No Time to Die. I wasn't impressed. The villain's motivations were all over the place. 

[Heartofice]

17 minutes ago, Cas Stark said:

I've always thought that Godfather was Pacino's best performance, so interior and restrained.  After that, he became AL PACINO, and while he's still great in many roles, he's been chewing scenery ever since.

I know there has been this odd 'fake rivalry' between him and De Niro for Best Actor Ever, culminating in their infamous scene in Heat. Growing up though I was always very confused because De Niro was this incredible actor I'd seen in Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, King of Comedy etc.. and Al Pacino was the 'HOO HAA!' guy that I think I saw in Devils Advocate. Never understood why there was a comparison. 

Going back you can see why Pacino was considered great, Godfather, Serpico, Dog Day Afternoon.. 

It's hard to say which of the two lost their interest in the art of acting first though. Probably De Niro, as Pacino was still making half decent movies later in his career like The Insider, whereas De Niro was firmly stuck doing shit like Meet the Fockers. Both really are firmly in 'paycheck' territory these days though.

[Ran]

That scene in Heat was just electric. You ever see the original TV movie version of it, LA Takedown?

 

Incredible what two great actors can do vs. two… well, not great actors.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

1 hour ago, Corvinus85 said:

I've watched the last Bond movie, No Time to Die. I wasn't impressed. The villain's motivations were all over the place. 

It's simply not a good film. I really liked the dynamic of Bond being retired and replaced, and some of the set action was breathtaking as always, but the actual story, why? As you said the Villain and his motives are paper thin.

 

Also, unrelated but since Heat has been brought up, it always cracks me up seeing this scene:

 

If you listen carefully around the 1:10 mark you can hear Hank Azaria (of Simpsons fame) spit out "Jesus" and it was because he was so taken aback by Al's overacting. Comedy gold that they kept it in the film. 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

Anyways, Romancing the Stone is on HBO Max. What an incredibly dumb, but kind of fun film. It's worth a watch if you like romcoms with an adventure twist. The Lost City did straight up copy it though and the interwebs say they did a very poor job at it. 

[Inkdaub]

1 hour ago, Ran said:

That scene in Heat was just electric.

I have to admit that scene does nothing for me. I hear people talk about really liking it and I can't at all understand why. Their scenes in The Irishman...I never saw that cop movie they did...were much better. I do get that Heat was the first which elevates it some.

I do like Pacino as Corleone but I have always thought his best performance was in Dog Day Afternoon. The 'great ass' scene is absurd but otherwise I really liked him in Heat. I usually come down on the DeNiro side of the Pacino vs. DeNiro debate, though.

I just watched The Capture which was pretty good mostly due to the performances of the leads. It was one of those shows where each episode is progressively weirder and weirder until the gig is up and then we have a couple episodes to clean it up. This show is sometimes called a min-series and it made me think it might be nice if a studio like Netflix(or others) would just develop shows that had a finite episode count right out of the box. It would be better than developing  show then just dropping it after three seasons.

I have begun the first episode of Hanna but had to pause because it was late and I was getting irritated by the really quiet then really loud sound. Related is that I cannot get my headphones to pair to the tv.

[Derfel Cadarn]

9 hours ago, Heartofice said:

I always assumed I had seen The Godfather Trilogy, but on re-watch it seems I hadn't. I must be getting old.

I know I'd attempted to watch parts 1 & 2 on a number of occasions, but it's clear I never got more than an hour through the second more before. That is the curse of trying to watch these things on tv late at night.

But now I have streaming I can come back to them and watch them in my own time, it makes it far easier to digest. 

My main thought right now is, the first 2 movies are brilliant, but the entire time I'm thinking  'This would have been better as a tv show', such is a world we live in now. They do feel like precursors to prestige tv that we have at the moment, in fact the pacing and length of them almost don't work as movies at all. The fact that I know I always found the length of part 2 quite off-putting (and it still has Intermission in the middle!) is maybe a sign that we can only imagine what the tv show would have been.

And on that, while 2 is clearly amazing, it does have some odd pacing and editorial issues. Towards the end it tends to just jump to events, seemingly out of nowhere, only explaining what happened after 10 or so mins. The Sentate Committee scene just seemed to 'happen' and a few other scenes towards the end felt kinda jumpy with no lead in. Either way though, its just incredible how good Pacino is here, he doesn't do much 'acting' in the way he does in later years, but he's mesmorising. 

Finally I always thought the hate towards part 3 was overblown, but wow it feels like a step down when you've just finished part 2. The first alarm bell was when 3 minutes in I see George Hamilton's face in a crowd. Then Andy Garcia turns up and a I recognise a cast of mid level 90's actors from straight to video movies I'd seen. And Sofia Coppella... oh. 

It's blasphemy to even think they could remake it and that it could be good, but it would be so good as a 7 season tv show! 

Pacino seemed to be mostly playing Pacino in Godfather 3 rather than Michael, which was disappointing 

[Heartofice]

4 minutes ago, Derfel Cadarn said:

Pacino seemed to be mostly playing Pacino in Godfather 3 rather than Michael, which was disappointing 

I think I noticed that after about 10 seconds of seeing him in it. He visibly looks unlike Michael and more like just regular Pacino. 

[Iskaral Pust]

We’ve turned off HBO Max for a while and turned on Disney+ in its place.

We’ve tried both Boba Fett and Obi Wan Kenobi.  I’ve dropped both after just two episodes: both are boring and poorly made, Boba Fett wants to be Dances With Wolves who runs a protection racket, and the child Leia character is extremely grating. (And why choose a ~7yr old actor to play a 10yr old character?).  My son enjoys Boba Fett and my wife enjoys Obi Wan, so YMMV.

But Moon Knight is very good so far, and I say this as someone who is very jaded with all of the superheroes and even thought Wandavision and Loki eventually ran out of steam.  Oscar Isaac’s comedy really set this up well in Ep1 and I hope it continues strong.  I’m mid way through Ep3.