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Watched, Watched, Watching: It's not the plane, it's the pilot


Veltigar

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Right, I've finished Yellowjackets. It became more interesting when I had the luxury of spare time to sit and watch it all in one go. The pandemic (not literally having Covid, although I did have it this month for possibly the first time) has wreaked havoc with my ability to concentrate on anything that takes a while to get into. My attention span is so short these days.

Anyway, lots of good performances (always been a huge Juliette Lewis fan) and I am a sucker for anything where people get lost in the wilderness. I really enjoy all the 'deep dark secrets from the past', where women are presumed to be these harmless creatures who are unable stand up for themselves. 

I thought I saw that Black Sails was available on Prime again... oh no, wait, just 'Inside S2'? Humph.

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I looked into the overamped/hyped NF Grey Man last night, and looked askance immediately.  They lost me completely when shoehorning in for jeopardy an adolescent girl, who not only is a barely past tweenhood, but also has a life-threatening condition. That kind of cheap, cynical use of 'threat to a girl-child-dog-etc.' will never fly with me, not ever.  Who thought this was writing to grab an audience?

So I eye-cleansed with another Miss S / Miss Fisher's Mysteries in Shanghai from HBO.  The ladies in Miss S are so pretty, as pretty as their clothes, though oddly, one cannot miss, that though this is supposedly Shanghai in the 1930's, the elite women such as Miss S dress in couture from the late 1940's - early - mid 1950's. Which strikes me, at least, as, odd.  Of course their shoes are pure 2022, not at all 1930's either.  But all are beautiful, and exquisitely fabricated.  And the actress who plays Miss S has terrific comic timing.  The whole cast is very good.

The major difference between the Australian production of Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries and the Shanghai-Netflix production of Miss S is there are chase scenes and fights of the sorts seldom, if ever, in the Australian version. Since Miss S is 2022, and Miss Fisher's Murder  Mysteries is 2012-2015, which isn't that much of time difference, this seems a deliberate decision to have more 'action' than the Australian version.

 

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6 hours ago, Veltigar said:

Nancy Reagan knows and she would have just said "no" :P

Nothing from nothing but it still burns my ass to know that all the while she was peddling this just say no crap her husbands administration was literally dumping drugs into the US. Anyway,,,

Didn't really watch anything recently so hey, shark week I actually watched 30 min of it and renewed my fear for the ocean!

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Yeah, Grey Man was ok. Not great not Terrible. Gosling was good. Evans does a good eccentric bad guy.

Nope was better. I’d recommend it but I wouldn’t spend the money on Imax.

it occurs to me that 2023 will be the year of Florence Pugh. She’s in 4 films coming out next year; Don’t Worry Darling, which looks good, Dune 2, Oppenheimer and The Good Person (which I’ve never heard of). Presumably she’ll also have an MCU appearance as well. Get her agent a fruit basket because someone’s been putting in the overtime.

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Watched Everything, Everywhere All at Once. I'm thoroughly happy I avoided all spoilers and plot summaries. All I knew was Michelle Yeoh was in it and great, and it was some kind of mind-bender sci-fi.

I won't even comment on anything more, with the hope that someone else watches it as blind as I was. I had an absolutely terrific time with it. Most fun I've had watching a movie in a long time.

Oh, I got most of the way through The Old Man, but I think I'm giving it up. As much as I enjoy Jeff Bridges, I found his character and literally everyone else on screen so thoroughly dislikable that I find I have little interest in seeing how all the over-serious philosophical conversations mixed in with daytime soap opera intrigue wraps up. The musical queues during Shocking Moments were ridiculous to the point that I laughed out loud at a few of them. Over and over, I kept thinking "No one ever fucking talks like this. Ever."

I did enjoy his very, very good dogs. 

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1 hour ago, Argonath Diver said:

Oh, I got most of the way through The Old Man, but I think I'm giving it up. As much as I enjoy Jeff Bridges, I found his character and literally everyone else on screen so thoroughly dislikable that I find I have little interest in seeing how all the over-serious philosophical conversations mixed in with daytime soap opera intrigue wraps up. The musical queues during Shocking Moments were ridiculous to the point that I laughed out loud at a few of them. Over and over, I kept thinking "No one ever fucking talks like this. Ever."

I did enjoy his very, very good dogs. 

My wife is watching this and keeps trying to get me to start it. 

@BigFatCoward I keep forgetting about S4 of Ms Maisel, S3 wasn't very good IMO so I have put it on the back burner. Same with the new Peaky Blinders, just haven't gotten around to starting it yet.

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32 minutes ago, dbunting said:

My wife is watching this and keeps trying to get me to start it. 

From the solid reviews around the net and from people I know - even my parents watched it ! - I really thought I'd enjoy it. I increasingly found myself guffawing and wanting to fast forward through entire confrontations, though. Just a bit too heavy-handed for me, but I'm happy to see Jeff Bridges as magnetic as ever.

I've finally begun Only Murders in The Building and it's a ton of fun so far. Alas I've lately been very much missing my time working in New York, and that show's made me a bit lonely for the place, despite it being a changing place these days in the years I've been gone.

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The conclusion of the first season was such a disappointment.  Too bad, because I'd liked it up to learning this was a mad feminist academic experiment.  Gimme a gdded break. Never bothered to check in w/ season 2.  

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10 hours ago, Deadlines? What Deadlines? said:

it occurs to me that 2023 will be the year of Florence Pugh. She’s in 4 films coming out next year; Don’t Worry Darling, which looks good, Dune 2, Oppenheimer and The Good Person (which I’ve never heard of). Presumably she’ll also have an MCU appearance as well. Get her agent a fruit basket because someone’s been putting in the overtime.

Sounds good to me. 

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Recently, I have binge-watched a lot of Better Call Saul.  I had to stop at season 6, episode 4.  It’s a great show, but it isn’t always easy to watch.  I’ll come back to it in about 2 weeks in order to be ready for the series finale.

Also, I finished watching Ms. Marvel.  It was very fun but too fast-paced.  I wish it had 8 episodes instead of 6.

Later today I’ll start Paper Girls.

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7 hours ago, SpaceChampion said:

The Wilds canceled at Amazon, for the three of us who watched it.

5 hours ago, Zorral said:

The conclusion of the first season was such a disappointment.  Too bad, because I'd liked it up to learning this was a mad feminist academic experiment.  Gimme a gdded break. Never bothered to check in w/ season 2.  

That's really disappointing news as I was anxious to see a third season.  If watched solely as a character study, it was engaging and poignant.  But, if you think about the worldbuilding aspects for even a second, the show becomes infuriatingly absurd.

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5 hours ago, SpaceChampion said:

The Wilds canceled at Amazon, for the three of us who watched it.

Not too much of a shame really. Quite enjoyed the last season but the ending was so disgustingly cynical, designed to keep the series going even if it didn’t deserve to.. that it deserves to be put out of its misery.

Its a shame because it’s moustache twirling feminist was a really brave bit of writing these days

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On 7/25/2022 at 6:45 PM, Spockydog said:

Got about half-an-hour into Chris Pratt's The Terminal List. Jesus, what a load of shite. Absolutely horrible. Someone give that man some prunes to eat.

 

 

I can't take him serious in anything, he reminds me too much of Stifler from "American Pie".

Just juvenile comedy attempts piled one on another from the guy. I don't find him convincing for an action scene nor, obviously, like his humor shtick.

So yea there's not much left to his characters that I want to view.

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His Dark Materials, the series is a great improvement on the Golden compass film but not as great as, say, Stranger things. S1 nearly over. Complete Verdict after everything done. Keen is great though, better than Brown in ST i'd say 

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Three episodes into Paper Girls on Amazon (they dropped the whole season this morning) and it's looking like the rare example of a graphic novel adaptation that improves over the source material. The graphic novel is solid but it moves very fast and there isn't a lot of time for characterisation (odd from the writer of Saga, which is much stronger in character-building). The TV show slows it down, pushes back on some of the more insane weirdness and does a lot more character stuff whilst still being relatively fast-paced compared to a lot of shows. The cast is also excellent.

I'm a bit worried that Amazon has done jack shit marketing for the show though, and pushing it all out at once means it'll likely get completely lost in the buzz of other shows, especially with Andor starting to drop on Sunday (Sunday!?), She-Hulk in a couple of weeks, House of the Dragon the week after that and The Rings of Power two weeks after that. That annoying Stranger Things comparison might also put people off (although Paper Girls predates ST by a year and it's a very different kind of story).

On 7/27/2022 at 2:58 PM, Isis said:

Right, I've finished Yellowjackets. It became more interesting when I had the luxury of spare time to sit and watch it all in one go. The pandemic (not literally having Covid, although I did have it this month for possibly the first time) has wreaked havoc with my ability to concentrate on anything that takes a while to get into. My attention span is so short these days.

Anyway, lots of good performances (always been a huge Juliette Lewis fan) and I am a sucker for anything where people get lost in the wilderness. I really enjoy all the 'deep dark secrets from the past', where women are presumed to be these harmless creatures who are unable stand up for themselves. 

I thought I saw that Black Sails was available on Prime again... oh no, wait, just 'Inside S2'? Humph.

Yellowjackets is excellent. Very similar vibe to early Lost.

16 hours ago, BigFatCoward said:

I'm watching late but I'm finding S4 of Mrs Maisel hard work. It's just getting too...... I don't know the word, contrived and farcical maybe? 

The show started off as a dramedy anyway but by Season 4 (3, probably) it has effectively become a full-on comedy. I don't mind that as the writing is sharp enough to support. It does make the dramatic moments feel increasingly out of place, though, like the Lenny Bruce stuff, although it is good they've stopped whitewashing his darker side and are showing his more problematic behaviour. 

They really need to do a full-on Lenny Bruce biopic with the same actor. He's absolutely brilliant in the role.

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