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Watched, Watch, Watching : Save the Wiseguys fundraiser


TheLastWolf

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2 minutes ago, Veltigar said:

Speaking of Troy, apparently its director Wolfgang Petersen passed away. Rest in peace.

Inception. His death is what prompted the discussion about Troy in the first place!

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10 hours ago, TheLastWolf said:

if even he says so...doesn't mean its a good film, just that it has reached Western audiences like no other film from India

That's, well, kinda sad, due to the Hindi nationalism that emerges in the later sections of the film.  I agree that Baahubali is a better film -- haven't seen the other two he mentions

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The filmmaker also said that he was not a big fan of 'RRR' which was directed by ace director SS Rajamouli. He said that he admired Rajamouli's works, but he did not find 'RRR' as good as other movies of the latter. For Anurag, Rajamouli's 'Baahubali', 'Magadheera', and 'Eega (Makkhi)' are better than 'RRR'. 

As for Troy, I have never argued it was even a good film.  The best thing it had was that vision of the thousand ships showing up outside the great walled city-fortress that kept the gates to the east's riches and grain supplies. That was impressive -- for the time.

As for The 300 -- bombast, bloviation and bullshyte.  So like Miller.

 

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12 hours ago, TormundsWoman said:

I personally don't know anyone who doesn't think Troy is a terrible movie while 300 is cinematically and storywise good. Mostly is the wooden acting of Pitt & Orlando bloom that gets highlighted in criticism, also cutting out the Gods machinations and focusing too much on Brad Pitt's face. I liked Troy, because I simply like the Iliad. But I can understand the complaints.

I didn't mind the more realistic approach to the story, but at the same time I disliked the other story changes. Like Hector killing Menelaus, the omission of the coolest of the Greek heroes, Diomedes, and Aeneas being just a rando at the end. Memnon would have also been great if added + it would have given the movie some diversity.

33 minutes ago, TheLastWolf said:

Sword and Sandals

Spartacus anyone? Not the usual Kubrick fare though, but I loved it.

PS

Honourable mentions Cleopatra and Ben Hur

These are good examples for the entire history of the genre, but we were mostly talking about the recent decades, post Gladiator.

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I like 300, but at this point the best part about the film is the online debate over its inflated runtime. Some people think there’s only 10-15 minutes of slow motion while others think the film would be under an hour if you removed the slow mo and reused shots. It cracks me up that you could possibly  combine 300 with the sequel and it would still be shorter than Alexander if it was cleaned up.

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In the past weeks I took a screen break and made a bit of progress on a book I’m trying to read since 2019. And then… 

i finished season 6&7 of Clone Wars. That series is still superbly written even though I wasn’t particularly invested in season 7. The final two episodes were gripping and heartbreaking, but apart from that I favor season 6 of the two. 

And one “cold” summer night (when it’s only 22C at 9pm and not 32C), I got a craving for a cinnamon hot chocolate and started rewatching Once Upon A Time. I loved it on the first watch and enjoyed the second, now it’s mostly background noise and I’ll probably turn it off entirely after season 3. 

During an unpleasant and apathetic 3 days of mild stomach flu (or was it?) I watched Sleeping Beauty, which is an all time favorite in its classic simplicity and The Fox and the Hound. It was okay, but did nothing for me other than mirthless chuckles over how this could never ever be made today. 

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Finished S4 of Mrs Maisel, not sure if I loved it but it was a big step up from S3. Still think her mother and father are the absolute stars. 

Now onto Russian Doll S2 or Succession, while I wait for what we do in the shadows to be released in the UK. 

 

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The discussion/argument re HoD will take over.  Already -- the reviewers got the first 6 eps to screen; across the board the consensus is, "dull, grey, dreary," though one says it gets better almost at the end of the first 6 eps she saw.  The commentariat responding repeat one after another all the same things the commentariart yelled about re GoT: reviewer hates fantasy, best thing that ever was made ever anywhere, the worst thing ever made everywhere, D&D betrayed GRRM, it's not GRRM's fault, GRRM should finish the series, love the rape and violence and all the naked females, hate the rape and violence and naked women, I can't wait, I won't watch.  Well, you all know the discussion as well as I do -- probably a lot better, actually!

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47 minutes ago, BigFatCoward said:

Finished S4 of Mrs Maisel, not sure if I loved it but it was a big step up from S3. Still think her mother and father are the absolute stars. 

Glad to hear this, I have put S4 off because S3 just wasn't good for me.

28 minutes ago, Zorral said:

The discussion/argument re HoD will take over.  

Yeah I have seen all kinds of things saying it's better than GOT and Breaking Bad. That scares me because I'm sure it's pure hype building B.S.

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On 8/19/2022 at 10:56 AM, Zorral said:

Collections: This. Isn’t. Sparta. Retrospective

https://acoup.blog/2022/08/19/collections-this-isnt-sparta-retrospective/

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.... That hazy vision in turn was continually reflected and reified in the popular image of Sparta – precisely the version of Sparta that Nick Burns was mobilizing in his essay. That’s no surprise, as the Sparta of the undergraduate material becomes what is taught when those undergrads become high school teachers, which in turn becomes the Sparta that shows up in the works of Frank Miller, Steven Pressfield and Zack Snyder.2 It is a reading of the sources that is at once both gullible and incomplete, accepting all of the praise without for a moment thinking about the implications; for the sake of simplicity I’m going to refer to this vision of Sparta subsequently as the ‘Pressfield camp,’ after Steven Pressfield, the author of Gates of Fire (1998).3 It has always been striking to me that for everything we are told about Spartan values and society, the actual spartiates would have despised nearly all of their boosters with sole exception of the praise they got from southern enslaver-planter aristocrats in the pre-Civil War United States. If there is one thing I wish I had emphasized more in This. Isn’t. Sparta. it would have been to tell the average ‘Sparta bro’ that the Spartans would have held him in contempt. ....

 

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5 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

I cannot praise S1 of Breaking Bad enough. Absolutely gripping television. 

I came into the series a couple of years ago, and so I was able to marathon BB and much of BCS. What an amazing journey. Just about as good as television gets.

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