Watch, Watched, Watching: Festival Time!

[BigFatCoward]

14 hours ago, Heartofice said:

Now tv

Now TV. That's like the Tesco Mobile of streaming services. I literally don't know a single person who has it. 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

7 hours ago, DMC said:

IIRC, the first episode of season 2 is exactly when (US) House of Cards jumped the shark.  I stopped watching at the end of the second season.  So, you could probably just dispense with that one now.

Lol, yep. I always thought they should have just made it a miniseries and ended it after Frank shoves Zoe onto the subway tracks. 

[Heartofice]

4 hours ago, BigFatCoward said:

Now TV. That's like the Tesco Mobile of streaming services. I literally don't know a single person who has it. 

Its a pretty dreadful platform, but I occasionally dip in and get a months worth when there is a lot of stuff to check out, like HotD. It's basically Sky stuff just worse.
 

52 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Lol, yep. I always thought they should have just made it a miniseries and ended it after Frank shoves Zoe onto the subway tracks. 

I think I might have gotten 4 seasons into House of Cards, I didn't think season 2 was that bad, obviously a step down. It got REALLY bad towards the end though and I never finished. It stopped being smart and was just a soapy glossy mess.

[Raja]

Caught up with house of the dragon and have really enjoyed the last few episodes, it is quite uneven in some places and I think some of the writing is still not the best but I've really enjoyed Olivia Cooke and D'arcy's performances. 

Some weaknesses remain - it is a show that is still mostly devoid of humour, but there is enough good in it that I am happy to watch along. 

Paddy considine is also excellent. 

Also, it is nice to see black and brown people in this world. I think the valareyons being black is an excellent choice, and the actors have risen to the roles. All the nonsense about 'lore' was nonsense then and is more so now, and of course these arguements are not limited to the GOT fandom. 

People really tell on themselves with comments like those. 

[dbunting]

14 hours ago, Heartofice said:

Its a pretty dreadful platform, but I occasionally dip in and get a months worth when there is a lot of stuff to check out, like HotD. It's basically Sky stuff just worse.
 

I think I might have gotten 4 seasons into House of Cards, I didn't think season 2 was that bad, obviously a step down. It got REALLY bad towards the end though and I never finished. It stopped being smart and was just a soapy glossy mess.

I think I quit on HOC after 2 or 3, just turned into a mess. S1 was great, after that it just lost itself.

I watched 21 Bridges today and it was an ok movie. The plot was pretty clear and there were no surprises. No reason to seek this out to watch it but if bored it's ok.

[Heartofice]

4 hours ago, Raja said:

Also, it is nice to see black and brown people in this world. I think the valareyons being black is an excellent choice, and the actors have risen to the roles. All the nonsense about 'lore' was nonsense then and is more so now, and of course these arguements are not limited to the GOT fandom. 

People really tell on themselves with comments like those. 

This is going to surprise you, but I agree 

The race swapping in HotD really works well and improves the show, it isn’t just mindless tokenism. 

I’m sure there are complaints about how it makes zero sense from a Lore perspective, which might be true, but I’m not that bothered about the lore. 
 

It made the different houses more distinctive and in a story where everyone is made to believe something clearly untrue about the heritage of heirs, it made it all the more obvious. It worked from a storytelling perspective and that is what matters.

[DireWolfSpirit]

I really wish we could've gotten a few more seasons of Tom Hardy's TABOO.

[Derfel Cadarn]

33 minutes ago, DireWolfSpirit said:

I really wish we could've gotten a few more seasons of Tom Hardy's TABOO.

I believe early work has started on season 2

https://www.digitalspy.com/tv/a824328/taboo-season-2-release-date-tom-hardy-episodes-cast-plot/

[Isis]

3 hours ago, Derfel Cadarn said:

I believe early work has started on season 2

https://www.digitalspy.com/tv/a824328/taboo-season-2-release-date-tom-hardy-episodes-cast-plot/

More like late work, no? How long ago was S1 on? It's pre-2016 right?

We watched a Hans Zimmer documentary the other day. It was on iplayer but it aired Sunday night on one of the BBC channels. Really good stuff! Obviously I am familiar with his scores but I had no idea how influential he was or how much he has helped other composers coming up behind. There were a couple of things he had done prior to becoming a big Hollywood name that I had no idea about - I won't say what they were in case of spoling the surprise for anyone else. But I do highly recommend that anyone who is into soundtracks give it a watch. 

[Derfel Cadarn]

1 hour ago, Isis said:

More like late work, no? How long ago was S1 on? It's pre-2016 right?

We watched a Hans Zimmer documentary the other day. It was on iplayer but it aired Sunday night on one of the BBC channels. Really good stuff! Obviously I am familiar with his scores but I had no idea how influential he was or how much he has helped other composers coming up behind. There were a couple of things he had done prior to becoming a big Hollywood name that I had no idea about - I won't say what they were in case of spoling the surprise for anyone else. But I do highly recommend that anyone who is into soundtracks give it a watch. 

It aired January 2017, I believe. I’d just moved into my new house

[Veltigar]

Watched Rings of Power's finale and the ninth episode of House of the Dragon. The former was basically a joke, putting the 

Spoiler

titular event of the entire show in one episode (or like 15 minutes in total).

The latter was also somewhat disappointing. I think for me it is between this and episode 5 to determine the weakest episode of the season.

[dbunting]

12 hours ago, Veltigar said:

Watched Rings of Power's finale and the ninth episode of House of the Dragon. The former was basically a joke, putting the 

  Hide contents

titular event of the entire show in one episode (or like 15 minutes in total).

The latter was also somewhat disappointing. I think for me it is between this and episode 5 to determine the weakest episode of the season.

I attribute my feelings about this episode of HotD to not having Daemon and Rhaenyra in it, along with you know who dying last week. 

[TheLastWolf]

Finished S3 of True Detective 

Nice, but fairy tailish ending. I couldn't predict shit in the other 2 seasons,  here quite a bit. And the spiral reference would have been enough, why show Rust and Harts's faces and all. 

Ali was simply fantastic though. Mesmerizing. 

[Knight of Ashes]

Thor Love and Thunder 

Finally, an MCU film where I have to be bribed with a weekend with Hailee Steinfeld to get me to rewatch.

[TheLastWolf]

Unforgiven 

Eastwood and Co

Great not the greatest but there's something magnetic. 

[dog-days]

Back from Martin Mcdonagh's The Banshees of Inisherin. Really enjoyed it – charismatic  performances as per usual from Brendan Gleeson and Colin Farrell plus from Kerry Condon as Siobhan, Farrell's intelligent, frustrated sister. Amazing visuals - it was filmed on Inishmore and Achill Island, so McDonagh basically just had to point the camera somewhere and let it run, but the panoramas of wall-crossed thin-soiled fields and cliffs and sea were an essential part of the experience.

Loved the sets and the costume details - Siobhan wears bright colours, the only character who does apart from Jenny the Miniature Donkey's red ribbon, a sign of her role in the lives of at least two of the characters. Nine out of ten for the music, a mix of lieder, session Irish and lone fiddle. It would be ten except that at one point in the film I felt it was too on-the-nose, too intrusive. Others may disagree - I'm the only person I know who can work themselves into a foaming rage over incidental strings. 

In terms of script and action, I think the film was a bit let down by its final third. It kept up a fine mix of black comedy and pathos for the first two thirds of the running time, but then the jokes disappeared, and it verged on becoming 'all blood, dirt and sucked sugar stick' to misappropriate Yeats. It never morphed into a stupid film; at the same time, with less of the wit, the tropes of Irish screen and stage started to be more felt – the obvious banshee stand-in (I'm still figuring out why the plural in the title), and the holy fool. Banshees of Inisherin petered out, when I wish it had been given a final energetic wrench. With Martin McDonagh now fifty-two, I think he might have moved permanently away from the riotous vigour of In Bruges and Seven Psychopaths. A bit of a shame, but not a huge one. 

The dialogue was, I assume, written to follow the lines of western Irish English. It didn't make any effort to sound of its era - the Civil War is going on, but beyond gunfire and smoke there are few specific references to the wider world, politics, pop culture of the time, and a couple of obvious anachronisms (e.g. 'It takes two to tango' which the internet says may date from 1952). But that's fine. It all fits in with the dreamy, strangely claustrophobic setting (the two main characters pushed into one another by the amenities consisting of one road, a pub and a shop) which isn't remotely interested in the period itself. Aside from that, the Aran Islands are in the Gaeltacht, and in 1923 I imagine would have been solidly Irish-speaking. 

[The Sunland Lord]

Gonna watch second season of Barbarians tonight. Anyone else?

[Zorral]

17 minutes ago, The Sunland Lord said:

Gonna watch second season of Barbarians tonight. Anyone else?

Raises hand -- at least the first couple of episodes -- will try to eke them out, as there's unlikely to be anything else like this new for a long time.  

[Nictarion]

6 hours ago, TheLastWolf said:

Unforgiven 

Eastwood and Co

Great not the greatest but there's something magnetic. 

Not the greatest? It’s a masterpiece. 

 

[Deadlines? What Deadlines?]

Yeah it's pretty amazing.

Some audiences at the time didn't care much for it. They thought they were going to see City Slickers 3. Given some of the marketing behind the film, I can't say they were wrong. 

I rewatched The Hunt for Red October recently. My appreciation for that film only grows with time. Incredibly well directed, edited, scored. Easily Sean Connery's best performance. I think it's let down a bit by its action set piece 3rd act but otherwise solid.