Watch, Watched, Watching: November Rain

[SpaceChampion]

Moonhaven was renewed for a 2nd season, but now joins the ranks of shows that has violated the no-take-backsies rule.  Cancelled by AMC.

Quote

The show’s demise is still surprising given the fact that AMC Networks touted its strong performance, and, in light of that, I heard the company considered a two-season pickup before going with a six-episode second season order in late July. At the time, AMC Networks said that Moonhaven was its number one most-watched AMC+ exclusive series and number most-watched new series in the streamer’s history behind Dark Winds.

The deliberately stilted manner of speaking in the show was strangely appealing and somehow understandable despite the sentence construction being so weird, and yet was a compact way to convey the world-building rather brilliantly.  I'll miss this show.

[TheLastWolf]

Sin City was gorgeous but the writing could have been a whole lot better

Hope 2 is equally good

[Nictarion]

3 hours ago, TheLastWolf said:

Sin City was gorgeous but the writing could have been a whole lot better

Hope 2 is equally good

It’s not. 

[Tyrosh Lannister]

Where can I watch the football world cup online for free 

[TheLastWolf]

39 minutes ago, Nictarion said:

It’s not. 

Still going ahead, thanks anyway 

[Deadlines? What Deadlines?]

57 minutes ago, Nictarion said:

It’s not. 

Yeah it really isn't. Maybe only slightly better than The Spirit, which had an interesting evolution of Sin City's visual style but otherwise was absolutely awful. 

[Veltigar]

I went to the theatre twice yesterday. First, I watched Mark Mylod's The Menu and then afterwards I watched Luca Guadagnino's Bones and All. Definitely one of the better nights at the movies that I have had in a very long time.

I'll begin with The Menu, which was definitely my favourite film of the night. I love haute cuisine, I adore pretty much the entire cast (with Nicholas Hoult as a particular stand-out in an entirely amazing cast), and I thought that this film almost perfectly managed to ride the fine line between "great art" on the one hand and "accessible to the general public" on the other hand. On top of that, it was also hilarious throughout, which I did not expect but should have seen coming given Mylod's involvement in Succession.

All in all, The Menu is the type of film I like a lot that is not made enough nowadays. It's more ambitious than the average film that gets a wide release, while not succumbing to its pretentions and remembering that the audience paid to have a fun night out.

Bones and All on the other hand was less my cup of tea. I still enjoyed it and would recommend it to people who are not too squeamish (because the cannibal scenes were appropriately disgusting), but it won't be my favourite movie of the year. Part of my apprehension is that it reminded me a lot of films like The Badlands and Natural Born Killers, which are movie classics that also did not really strike a chord with me when I saw them for the first time. Part of it might be the utter insanity of the plot (not to mention the fact that the film is a tad too long for the amount of story it needs to tell).

That being said, it is a film that makes you think. There were some things about the plot that bothered me and on looking up the source material, my appreciation for the film has grown tremendously. Guadagnino has basically taken a trashy YA Twilight-type of book and turned it into a gorgeous art-house flick. That is a considerable achievement in and of itself that makes me curious to see more by this director and these screenwriters. It seems to me that they managed to sift the few grains of gold out of the YA filth and combined it with their own artistic sensibilities (as well as tremendously strong performances by Mark Rylance and Chalamet) to create something much grander. I would thus say that from an artistic perspective, this type of ambition and daring is what you want to see in more adaptations.

[Spockydog]

4 hours ago, Tyrosh Lannister said:

Where can I watch the football world cup online for free 

If you've got a VPN, log onto a UK server and watch it on the BBC iPlayer. 

[TheLastWolf]

5 hours ago, TheLastWolf said:

Still going ahead, thanks anyway 

Ok it was shittier writing mated with mediocre action

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

6 hours ago, Nictarion said:

It’s not. 

Sin City is a favorite of mine.

The sequel is hot garbage. 

[RumHam]

I only this weekend found out there's a Weekend at Bernie's II (I guess I knew as a kid cause it was mentioned on Seinfeld.) So I know what I'm watching later.

It's still Bernie too, it's not even a new dead guy! Apparently voodoo is involved. It sounds amazingly terrible.

[Consigliere]

7 hours ago, Tyrosh Lannister said:

Where can I watch the football world cup online for free 

Score808.com.

Make sure you have uBlock Origin and/or Privacy Badger to block the most egregious ads and trackers.

Quality is not great but watchable on a small screen i.e. a laptop.

[Ran]

Finished the first season of the anime Vinland Saga, adapting Makoto Yukimura's historical adventure manga of the same name. I have to say, it has some surprising levels of historicism to it, he clearly did a lot of research (including a rather adventurous journey to Scandinavia despite speaking very little English). Many of the characters are loosely (very loosely) based on historical figures -- Leif Eriksson, Thorkell the Tall, Cnut, and even the central character, Thorfinn, who we follow from the age of 6 to about the age of 17.

This season covers the first major arc of the manga, and when I read up on the manga I realized that they re-ordered some things. Reading more about that, Yukimura apparently has very high praise for the anime, saying the studio (Wit, who did the first season; MAPPA is doing the second season) understood the story better than he did and were able to correct pacing issues. In any case, it's basically a historical adventure taking Thorfinn from Iceland to France, England, and (I gather) ultimately beyond. It's a story driven by revenge (for more than one character), and by the struggle for control of England between the Norse and the Anglo-Saxons, with a detour through Wales and a few interesting references to Roman Britain.

The action is that sort where there's all sort of faceless soldiers who just sort of fight like normal people, and then there are a handful of named characters who quite literally mow them down like so much chaff. Thorkell, for example, can lob small boulders across the Thames, and throw a spear from about half a mile out to impale three people, to say nothing of just casually splitting people in half with his ax (like Shagga, he prefers having two axs). Thorfinn's father, Thors, called the Troll of Joms (he used to be a Jomsviking, and had a tie to the semi-legendary chieftain Sigvaldi who led the Jomsvikings), is even deadlier. And Thorfinn... well, lets just say that he's his father's son.

First half is stronger than the second half, in my opinion, but that said the episode that sticks out the most is the 14th episode, when a band of Danish mercenaries on the run in the midst of winter decide to hide out in an English village... which means getting rid of the villagers. It's a grim, dark episode. And later on, while the second half is weaker (as I said), it also touches on some philosophical things that are really quite interesting, particularly in the way that its depiction of Cnut (he features heavily in that second half) shifts when he has a theological realization that changes his outlook on how to proceed with his life. The character of Askeladd, leader of the mercenaries, is also rather interesting, as is his relationship to Thorfinn.

Biggest issue I had with it was that after the first several episodes, we basically never hear of Thorfinn's mother and sister back on Iceland, even though they were focused on a bit in those first episodes, even after Thors and Thorfinn have journeyed away. I thought this was an issue with the anime stripping out stuff, but in fact it seems to be a manga issue as well. Shame. Still, eager to see the second season, and what I've read of the manga as it continues suggests a very interesting journey for Thorfinn (shades of Ender from Ender's Game).

 

[Zorral]

Watched the first two-episode program in the AP Three Pines series.  It's unexpectedly close in tone and attitude and characterization of the Louise Penny early novels.  Three Pines itself looks much as I imagined it while reading the novels. The sounds and look of Real Winter in the French provinces of Canada were the real thing; since it begins at Christmas, this is perfect for the season too.  Whatever others think, it came through as very good in my critical judgment.  It didn't feel at all slow and dull, though, it, like the source material is generally not action packed.  These are not action tales (though there are sections of some books that are, and Our Protagonist even nearly dies from them), but the long examination of the life of a man who is profoundly decent, with a strong Catholic faith, a high level cop, who wrestles constantly with the evils of the world and his profession.  He sees evils of his profession clearly, while not giving up in attempting to improve the world around him, starting with how he treats and interacts with every person with whom he has contact.  All true to Penny's novels, and which probably has made them so popular and well-read.

Not to mention this part of Canada is very beautiful.  I've never been to fictional Three Pines of course, but I have been in villages not that different, such as Trois-Rivières in Quebec province. 

 

[Iskaral Pust]

On a recent flight back from London, I watched Bullet Train, and rewatched The Social Network.  Added to a recent flight from Seattle when I watched Everything, Everywhere, All At Once, I’ve had a really good experience with in-flight movies lately.  Bullet Train felt like a reheated mash-up of Tarantino and Guy Richie, but it was fun.

Wednesday was fun too.  I don’t know if they can persuade Tim Burton to return for another season but it was a quirky, humorous take on teenage coming-of-age at a magical boarding school.  The biggest downside was that Gomez, Morticia and Fester were all far inferior to their counterparts in the 1990s movie.

My wife watched a bunch of Hallmark Christmas movies while I was traveling and even she thinks they’re too saccharine and formulaic now.  She indulges figuratively in holiday sweets while I do it literally. 

[Zorral]

Additionally, regarding Three Pines series -- I received a strong sense that the connector narrative/story-line, from one 2-episode narrative, to the next, is built around the crimes and sins of the lately infamous Residence schools, which so abused First People children.  This was talked about quite a bit here, particularly in the Canadian thread.

[DireWolfSpirit]

Everything, Everywhere, All at Once-

Struck zero chords with me.

I know everyone, everywhere, all of the time, has been gushing over this one, but I was not compelled by it one iota unfortunately. 

[dog-days]

25 minutes ago, Zorral said:

Additionally, regarding Three Pines series -- I received a strong sense that the connector narrative/story-line, from one 2-episode narrative, to the next, is built around the crimes and sins of the lately infamous Residence schools, which so abused First People children.  This was talked about quite a bit here, particularly in the Canadian thread.

That does sound interesting. I wasn't going to bother since I went through the books fairly recently, but if they're creating different plots, I might give it a try.

[dbunting]

Wrapped up Andor, and yes IMO it's the best of the Disney SW series by far. Better than most of the Pre and Sequel movies also. If they can make stuff like this for us adult fans then I can find some of the other stuff aimed at kids more tolerable.

Also watched Peaky Blinders S6. Yeah, it was mostly garbage, maybe not hot garbage but garbage just the same. Glad it's over. If I had to watch one more scene where he was walking toward the camera with music playing I may have barfed. 

[Nictarion]

4 hours ago, DireWolfSpirit said:

Everything, Everywhere, All at Once-

Struck zero chords with me.

I know everyone, everywhere, all of the time, has been gushing over this one, but I was not compelled by it one iota unfortunately. 

You’re dead inside.