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


Veltigar

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I watched Thor: Love & Thunder yesterday. I really, really liked it. These Thor movies have finally found their own voice and they are now infinitely more interesting than your average shitty MCU movie.

This film had a distinct style, a great villain, emotional stakes (up to a point, this remains Marvel) and the humor is just magnificent. I wish I could say these things about Marvel films but I'm already happy that we can say this about Taika Waititi's films.

I'm excited about the next Thor film, something I never thought I would say, as long as Taika remains on board.

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Atlanta Season 3 has landed in the UK via Disney+. Enjoying it so far, very fucked up as normal. Although I am wondering if Donald Glover is surreptitiously morphing the show season by season into a Black Mirror-style horror anthology in which he only rarely has to show up.

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13 hours ago, Heartofice said:

I did have a sound bar, not an expensive one, but it didn’t improve things too much. I think proper surround sound would make the difference as mixing is often designed for .. I guess 5.1? It’s frustrating there doesn’t seem to be any settings on a tv that actually help the issue.

I have a pretty nice 7.1 surround system and the issue I run into is that the sound levels vary wildly across the board.  Some shows or movies will be perfectly well-balanced, but with a lot of stuff the dialogue is always way too quiet and the action is always way too loud, so I have to constantly keep a hand on the remote and manage the volume manually, especially if I'm watching after ten at night and don't want to piss off the people above me. 

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15 hours ago, Heartofice said:

I think it really is for younger teens

Gee whiz, do you really think so? Imagine that, a Disney property based on an illustrated book...meant for children. Crazy. 

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2 hours ago, Werthead said:

Atlanta Season 3 has landed in the UK via Disney+. Enjoying it so far, very fucked up as normal. Although I am wondering if Donald Glover is surreptitiously morphing the show season by season into a Black Mirror-style horror anthology in which he only rarely has to show up.

I read an article some time ago, or maybe it was a twitter thread, where the author made a pretty rational argument as to why Atlanta should be considered Afro-Surrealism.

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Watched Dual, starring Karen Gillan.  Premise is the protagonist Sarah is dying and makes a clone to take her place, then finds out she's not dying afterall, so has a year to train before battling her clone to the death.

Quite a bit bait and switch if you're looking for a battle royale type finale, but totally fine as a movie if you're looking for a contemplative and at times darkly humorous existentialist (or perhaps nihilist) sci-fi movie.  It's just that the dialogue is god-awful robotic.  Apparently it's a deliberate choice by the writer/director to make it "deadpan" according to him, but doesn't really succeed at doing that and doesn't fit the rest of the movie as far as I can tell.  Or maybe the writer just knows he sucks at dialogue and tried to cover it up with a disturbingly heightened language bleached of all emotion.  I can point to maybe one character that sounds like a normal human being, and that's the terrible boyfriend, who clearly sucks as a human being.  I don't understand the choices Riley Stearns the director made, but the premise is interesting enough, and Gillen extracts what she can from it in her performance.  Maybe finding it all disturbing and off-putting is the point, i don't know.

Most of the movie seems like set-up, if you're expecting it to lead to the fight to the death at the end, but the correct way to watch is probably to try to figure out Sarah as a character, why she's so deadened emotionally and how she reacts to the things Aaron Paul's trainer character gets her to do in preparation, such as viewing dead bodies and images of various way to die becoming one of the few things to actually make Sarah feel more alive.  Nevertheless, Sarah's motivations remained opaque.

Sarah's Double, on the other hand is understandable in motivation at least.  She's treated as a better version of Sarah, more liked by her boyfriend, and more welcomed by Sarah's mom.  I want to scream at what they all end up doing to Sarah.  Maybe that's the point.

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1 hour ago, TheLastWolf said:

10 things i hate about you vs 500 days of summer

back to back

the latter is obv the better film but i liked the former inexplicably more

Heath Ledger makes the difference. Charisma off the charts.

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2 hours ago, Ran said:

Heath Ledger makes the difference. Charisma off the charts.

Today it was WhenHarryMetSally vs Before Sunrise

TIED

But fell in love with Meg Ryan, the fakegasm was splendid

But I hope the sequels in the latter's trilogy are equally good, thats for tomorrow. Dunno why im binging on these love stories some of it not the first time

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2 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

Has anyone here seen Black Bear, starring Aubrey Plaza and Sarah Gadon? It's one of the oddest films I've ever seen, being two films in one with roles reversing midway through like in Lethal Weapon 5.

Not yet, but there is a great interview with her here that was surprising to me describing how she broke into the business and created some of her characters: https://www.moviemaker.com/aubrey-plaza-emily-the-criminal-cover-story/

5 hours ago, 3CityApache said:

Before Sunset is equally great, Before Midnight less so IMO.

Ethan Hawke talked about doing a 4th one set during the pandemic lockdowns, but no word of whether Linklater and Delphy would be interested in that.

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1 hour ago, SpaceChampion said:

Ethan Hawke talked about doing a 4th one set during the pandemic lockdowns, but no word of whether Linklater and Delphy would be interested in that.

I read an interview with him where he said they decided they could come back to this story only if they had something meaningful and new to say and they didn't think they had. The opportunity seems to be gone, as the gap between the movies was nine years, which means the fourth installment should happen this year.

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Catatonic Buffy and post-death Buffy  are my spirit animals. It is all the feels I feel. It’s the essence of life in 2022. The relatability is out of the roof. I really enjoy the Willow storyline that’s unfolding in season 6. It’s been coming some time and it was highly necessary. And my heart is breaking for Spike. I just want to cuddle him and give him hot chocolate and tell him he’s appreciated. 

 

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My brain is exploding. I wonder how many hours of labor went into writing this episode. This is hands down the most genius musical episode I have ever encountered. Is this script taught in schools? Because it should be. Is there a book or a video essay series analyzing Buffy? I want someone to hold a lecture about this script. I want a Buffy class. 

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