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Watch, Watched, Watching: No Dragons Allowed


Ramsay B.

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6 minutes ago, Argonath Diver said:

I definitely want to check it out, as both of those fellas are charismatic guys. I got the feeling watching the trailer that their purchase was as much for the documentary itself as anything. Is that the case in the full episodes? Or was the doc a happy circumstance of their business venture?

I think they are pretty open that making the doc was to help  the marketing strategy for the club, and I think mostly their plan seems to be to expand the marketing of the club and build it that way. 

I can't say it's my favourite sports documentary out there, it's clearly made for a US audience at times, but the two of them are a lot of fun.

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Elvis.  Very Baz.  The Baz elements work much better here than in the Great Gatsby.I will say that it packed an emotional punch for me as watching Presley ruin himself and squander his talent was depressing, more than I thought it would be considering everyone already knows the story.

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I kinda dislike this trigger-happy shift in Lost . And I suppose the show needs that kind of drama at this point, but I would really like to see some characters represent the counter point. Culturally or in terms of background because at this point everybody who weighs in is either on a redemption arc from a violent past or reaching for violence as a last resort with the exception of Locke. I would love to see how Claire, Rose, Bernard, Hurley, Charlie, Libby and Sun feel about solving problems with guns. 

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Went to see Pearl tonight. Thoroughly enjoyed it. Mia Goth was absolutely fantastic. This was a worthy prequel that makes X even better. I saw one reviewer online label it “Wizard of Oz meets Psycho” and that’s pretty apt. 

I’ll be looking forward to MaXXXine.

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47 minutes ago, Ramsay B. said:

I went and saw Barbarian today. It was pretty great, I was surprised. It’s a horror movie and the less you know the better. I saw the trailer months ago and just knew the basic premise. I highly recommend.

I was looking at my movie theater app today and read a bit of the synopsis and it looked interesting.

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After several years of hearing the acclaim, ive finally plowed through "Breaking Bad"

Obviously a tremendous story and great character acting, I can apreciate that.

I couldnt enjoy all the stress and gut wrenching dysfunction between everyone though. It was always only going to end badly so the gloom took its toll on me.

Probably going to do El Camino now before BCallSaul.

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On 9/15/2022 at 6:56 PM, Argonath Diver said:

I definitely want to check it out, as both of those fellas are charismatic guys. I got the feeling watching the trailer that their purchase was as much for the documentary itself as anything. Is that the case in the full episodes? Or was the doc a happy circumstance of their business venture?

From what I can gather, Rob McElhenney had zero interest in football but got hooked on the documentary series Sunderland 'Til I Die in 2019 and almost simultaneously was working on Mythic Quest's first season with British writer Humphrey Ker. Ker would be watching football games during lunch breaks from the writers' room and McElhenney got into watching games with him. After Sunderland he wanted to know what it would take to buy a football team and was apparently flabbergasted at how cheap it would be to take over a team in the National League, although still not cheap enough to be an impulse purchase for a TV star.

Around the same time he and Ryan Reynolds had become Twitter-friends (Reynolds is clearly a fan of It's Always Sunny despite his rinsing of the show throughout Wrexham) and were looking for a project to do together that wasn't just appearing in a movie or TV show together. This came up as an idea which Reynolds thought was random, bizarre and likely a massive waste of money, so naturally leapt right on it.

I think the documentary angle was always there from the Sunderland inspiration but I don't think it was necessarily all about that. I doubt FX paid them enough money to justify the venture (maybe Disney+ did for the international rights), as they quickly discover that although running a National team is far cheaper than than a League, Championship or Premiership club (although most of those make far, far more money and are self-profitable, of course), it's still bloody expensive. At one point the re-layering of the pitch goes wrong, so the club has to strip it, re-layer it and water it, which costs over £300,000 (for pitch maintenance!), resulting in probably the funniest moment in the series as Ryan fucking Reynolds is earnestly discussing the soil fertility of a field in Wales. However, they also note that since they took over, the team's income has increased by something like 500%, thanks to insane things for a National club like sponsorship from TikTok and becoming a featured team in FIFA 22.

So yeah, it's an odd mix of vanity project (as the Welsh translator says to them, "Couldn't you have a normal midlife crisis and buy a Porsche?") and an actual business venture which they take incredibly seriously and get some proper talent in place to guide the venture forwards.

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On 9/15/2022 at 8:25 PM, RhaenysBee said:

I kinda dislike this trigger-happy shift in Lost . And I suppose the show needs that kind of drama at this point, but I would really like to see some characters represent the counter point. Culturally or in terms of background because at this point everybody who weighs in is either on a redemption arc from a violent past or reaching for violence as a last resort with the exception of Locke. I would love to see how Claire, Rose, Bernard, Hurley, Charlie, Libby and Sun feel about solving problems with guns. 

For a relatively international show cast-wise, Lost is very American in its treatment of firearms. There's a lot of characters in the show who should not be okay around guns at all and they take it quite naturally, which I think is a bit of American culture blindness from the writers.

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Finished the first ( think only) season of Tokyo Vice. Overall a very good show, with some really outstanding performances. As a look into Tokyo during that period it’s very interesting and I warmed to Elgort as the main character as time went on. I think the two stars of the show were the hostess Sam and Sato, Sato especially was just able to emote such conflicted feelings in every scene. I’d hope to see more of him in whatever he does outside of this show. 
 

It dragged a little in the middle but brought it back at the end. I don’t know what it’s status is but you’d hope it’s being continued 

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Watched the final episode of Harley Quinn's third season. This is by far the best piece of superhero content out there at the moment. It does interesting things with the lore, is always outrageously funny and like Ted Lasso it manages to be heartwarming without being sappy. 

The portrayal of the core relationship of the show is very life affirming and is probably the most mature and well-written portrayal of a healthy relationship anywhere on television. I felt things watching that finale episode that I normally do not associate with this genre at all, so it's really fun to see that actually great things can be done with these characters if handled by a good set of writers with a degree of ambition that goes beyond regurgitating the same old boring clichés for a new generation of teenagers. 

Also, this show has Bane and Bane is the best comic relief character anywhere on television right now.

I also watched the latest episode of Rings of Power. Alas, I cannot be positive about that one. Have already elaborated on my feelings on that episode in the dedicated thread, but I felt the intelligence of the story drop considerably this episode. That's never a great thing to happen, but when the level in previous episodes was already not that great to begin with, this might be the beginning of the end for me here. I hope the show is going to recover from this.

The only advantage is that it does make the achievement of House of the Dragon far more noticeable by comparison. 

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1 hour ago, DireWolfSpirit said:

After several years of hearing the acclaim, ive finally plowed through "Breaking Bad"

I'm just getting into the fourth season. This is easily one of the best shows I've ever seen. 

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2 hours ago, Werthead said:

For a relatively international show cast-wise, Lost is very American in its treatment of firearms. There's a lot of characters in the show who should not be okay around guns at all and they take it quite naturally, which I think is a bit of American culture blindness from the writers.

Exactly. It already borders on odd that everybody who has ever been on this island speaks fluent English aside from Jin, but world language, fine. There’s no good roundabout explanation why everybody is culturally American, however. 

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3 hours ago, DireWolfSpirit said:

Probably going to do El Camino now before BCallSaul.

If I watched El Camino immediately after finishing BB, it'd certainly seem like quite the let down.  Although that's cuz it's generally a let down anyway.

2 hours ago, Werthead said:

For a relatively international show cast-wise, Lost is very American in its treatment of firearms. There's a lot of characters in the show who should not be okay around guns at all and they take it quite naturally, which I think is a bit of American culture blindness from the writers.

While I'm American, I'm also very uncomfortable with guns.  I've refused to even hold them on multiple occasions - including on a weird college class-trip to the NRA headquarters.  I still don't really see that in the first and second seasons..

Spoiler

Upon acquiring the guns from Kate, Jack is very careful about using them.  Almost too careful, as the show emphasizes when Ethan returns and starts killing people.  Then, in the second season where they find a bunch more firearms in the hatch, they remain careful about the distribution of them unless extraordinary circumstances are required.

 

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22 hours ago, Ramsay B. said:

I went and saw Barbarian today. It was pretty great, I was surprised. It’s a horror movie and the less you know the better. I saw the trailer months ago and just knew the basic premise. I highly recommend.

Probably the most disturbing movie I’ve seen in theaters since Hereditary.   

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3 hours ago, Nictarion said:

Probably the most disturbing movie I’ve seen in theaters since Hereditary.   

I planned on taking an edible or 2 beforehand but realized I ran out. Kinda glad it went like that actually. There were some tense scenes. 

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