Watch, Watched Watching : 2023 is going to be unstable!

[Cas Stark]

30 minutes ago, Iskaral Pust said:

 

I finally watched Breakfast At Tiffany’s.  Audrey Hepburn is immensely watchable as the original manic pixie dream-girl, but it does seem like this adaptation is a bit fluffier than Capote intended.  The dark undertones are there for sure as we see Holly deftly handling pushy clients and Doc describing his 14yr old bride, but she (and the movie) breezily dismiss these things.  I’m pretty sure Mickey Rooney’s yellow-face was offensive and pointless even in 1961.

Trivia you may or may not know already or care about. 

Truman Capote wanted Marilyn Monroe for the part and hated the casting of Audrey Hepburn.  He correctly thought she didn't bring the right down market energy of his original story....but I'm not sure it would have been a classic with MM in the title role, definitely a totally different film with a different vibe.

[Mexal]

1 hour ago, Iskaral Pust said:

Following the spy theme, The Recruit is pretty good through ep6 (of 8).  It’s like a vastly, vastly improved Chuck.

My wife and I had a ton of fun watching this. Not sure it's an "improved" Chuck because Chuck is amazing but it definitely had those vibes to it, albeit less goofy. 

[HexMachina]

I've started watching Shrill, the Lindy West comedy series starring Aidy Bryant as the lead. Really enjoying it so far, forgot how much i liked the short format comedy episodes. Writing is clever and very funny, performances are great, look forward to seeing the plot progress

[Iskaral Pust]

1 hour ago, Maithanet said:

My wife and I have gotten several recommendations for Dark.  I am intrigued, but my wife is pretty averse to watching shows with significant violence against children.  Is that a dealbreaker here?  Is this on the level of say, True Detective Season 1?  Because if so, we'll probably give it a pass.  

My memory may be terrible but I don’t think you have anything to worry about.  A child goes missing in the opening episode but no violence is involved.  Dark S1-2 is very good.  I thought S3 was straining a bit to prolong the story beyond the original core plot and group of characters, but YMMV.

[Corvinus85]

54 minutes ago, Iskaral Pust said:

My memory may be terrible but I don’t think you have anything to worry about.  A child goes missing in the opening episode but no violence is involved.  Dark S1-2 is very good.  I thought S3 was straining a bit to prolong the story beyond the original core plot and group of characters, but YMMV.

Well there are the

Spoiler

dead children with burned out eyes. So... 

And a man attempts to murder a child by bashing his head in with a rock.

@Maithanet some spoilers on violence on children in Dark.

[dbunting]

Had some time off recently and ate some popcorn

Avatar water world... It was pretty much as I expected and also not.

Spoiler

Visually beautiful of course. Saw it on a big screen and in 3d and at times felt like I was looking at a giant aquarium, which is a good thing for me. The plot is exactly what you think it would be based on the preview. The worst part, that I didn't really expect is that this is just a set up for a third movie. One to unite the water and tree folks against the sky people. There was so long between these movies that I thought this was a wrap up and didn't expect the third one coming but also, I wouldn't have gone so see this if I wasn't off all week. 

Babylon  if you have a small interest in how movies are made this would be entertaining to you, also if you do cocaine before the movie it probably would be better because it's a frantic movie.

Spoiler

The cold opening is like 10-15 min long and is basically what you would imagine a 70's party at the Playboy mansion would have been like. I liked the movie as a whole except for the stuff with Toby Maguires character, I feel like you could cut all of that from the movie and improve it significantly.  Favorite sequence was the first on set stuff at the desert. One tear or two, left eye, right eye, that whole sequence was great. The extra in the battle sequence dying w the spear in him, "oh he ran into that"...  Also, the scene where they are first using sound was amazing

The movie won't be for most people but I really liked it minus one bit.

Jack Ryan S3  Much much better than S2. This felt more like S1 and now I hope they do another season. 

The Glass Onion   ehh... I think I liked it, I know I liked some performances, but that's about all I have to say?

X  The horror movie set on a porn production shoot. Dear lord give me back that 90 min or so that I wasted on this. Jenna Ortega was pretty good in the limited role she had, Kid Cudi and Brittany Snow also did good but the rest of it was just utter shit to me.

[Iskaral Pust]

4 hours ago, Corvinus85 said:

Well there are the

  Hide contents

dead children with burned out eyes. So... 

And a man attempts to murder a child by bashing his head in with a rock.

@Maithanet some spoilers on violence on children in Dark.

Yep, I forgot those bits

[Iskaral Pust]

7 hours ago, Cas Stark said:

Trivia you may or may not know already or care about. 

Truman Capote wanted Marilyn Monroe for the part and hated the casting of Audrey Hepburn.  He correctly thought she didn't bring the right down market energy of his original story....but I'm not sure it would have been a classic with MM in the title role, definitely a totally different film with a different vibe.

Good trivia.  We need a trivia bot around here.

MM definitely would have fit the novella character better, which would have made for a better (art house-ish) movie but probably a less commercially successful one.  It seems like the fantasy of the breezy, stylish it-girl about town is what made this so successful.

I can imagine the studio being slightly wary of casting MM in the role as Capote wrote it.  AH is so squeaky clean that no negative association would attach from playing a prostitute with a heart of gold.  Just as squeaky clean ingenue Julia Roberts was cast in Pretty Woman.

[RhaenysBee]

No Time to Die. Wow. Was it underwhelming or what. You can tell from Daniel Craig’s face that he hates every second of this job.
 

spoilers I guess, though it’s been over a year since 

Spoiler

Rami Malek is a great actor but his character is just impossibly boring and pales in contrast to previous bond villains even though the acting prowess is there. The new 007 is okay, Q is always nice to have around. I prefer Judi Dench’s M but Ralph Fiennes is okay. Ana De Armas should have had more screen time with Bond because they were a better dynamic than Bond and new007 or Bond and Madeline. He also should have had more time with the kid because he’s a rookie in that territory and it offered good comedy and being outside of his comfort zone. The plot is a trainwreck and there’s too much time wasted on well god knows what. The American subplot, Moneypenny, Lea Seydoux, cgi acrobatics that would kill a human body in their first thirty seconds. The threat of the main evil plan didn’t even really sink in because it was suffocated by stateless action, mini villains and other cheap distractions. I’m not saying it was terrible, it was a far cry from the sendoff Craig and the goodbye Bond deserved. Either way, I hope they let this franchise rest in peace now and don’t attempt to modernize it. 

 

[polishgenius]

There is absolutely zero chance they don't make more Bonds.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

1 hour ago, polishgenius said:

There is absolutely zero chance they don't make more Bonds.

Especially now that the Russians can be villains again. 

I agree with a lot of RB's criticisms, but I do think the film could have been saved with a better end boss and master plan. Malek's character sucked, he wasn't any good playing him and his plan was so freaking dumb. Overall it's a better film than Spectre, but that's not saying much. #JusticeforQoS

[Heartofice]

17 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Especially now that the Russians can be villains again. 

I agree with a lot of RB's criticisms, but I do think the film could have been saved with a better end boss and master plan. Malek's character sucked, he wasn't any good playing him and his plan was so freaking dumb. Overall it's a better film than Spectre, but that's not saying much. #JusticeforQoS

I also think the first hour of No Time to Die was really very good and I had the sense they had managed to capture the feel of Bond again. Its a shame it takes a bit downturn once Malek comes in and the ending doesn't work at all. But yes, easily a lot better than Spectre. Overall there really only ever ended up being one good Craig Bond movie, the first one. 

[Spockydog]

The last four Bond films have been nothing short of abysmal. Fucking dreadful stuff.

 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

19 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

I also think the first hour of No Time to Die was really very good and I had the sense they had managed to capture the feel of Bond again. Its a shame it takes a bit downturn once Malek comes in and the ending doesn't work at all. But yes, easily a lot better than Spectre. Overall there really only ever ended up being one good Craig Bond movie, the first one. 

Skyfall is a good Bond film, it's just not as great as a lot of the hype was. And Quantum of Solace is also above average, but as I've said several times here, you need to do a double feature and watch it right after Casino Royale. The emotional beats don't hit the same if you view it as a standalone movie.

Craig gave the single best Bond performance, and I'd argue that Brosnan gave the second best in GoldenEye, but overall Connery is the only Bond actor with at least three good films and you can argue none of them are terrible by comparison to the other entries. 

[Isis]

Started watching Archive 81 yesterday on Netflix. Mysterious, psychological horror series. Ominous, indeed. Not the sort of thing you want to watch just before going to bed. I love it so far.

[RhaenysBee]

3 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

Especially now that the Russians can be villains again. 

I agree with a lot of RB's criticisms, but I do think the film could have been saved with a better end boss and master plan. Malek's character sucked, he wasn't any good playing him and his plan was so freaking dumb. Overall it's a better film than Spectre, but that's not saying much. #JusticeforQoS

well remind me of the time when they couldn’t *nervous laugh* (meaning that Hollywood never let go of this trope)

Oh yeah, the film had every potential to be good, it just needed more work. Or more cutting. I mean you could work with this if you edit out 45 minutes and lean down the plot for focus and weight. Speaking of, I have no recollection of Spectre. I watched Skyfall and Casino Royal a bunch of times, I have distant memories of Quantum, but Spectre is a black hole. 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

1 hour ago, RhaenysBee said:

well remind me of the time when they couldn’t *nervous laugh* (meaning that Hollywood never let go of this trope)

The Russians as the evil villain hasn't happened in at least 15 years iirc.

Quote

Oh yeah, the film had every potential to be good, it just needed more work. Or more cutting. I mean you could work with this if you edit out 45 minutes and lean down the plot for focus and weight. Speaking of, I have no recollection of Spectre. I watched Skyfall and Casino Royal a bunch of times, I have distant memories of Quantum, but Spectre is a black hole. 

Because it's so bad. Bottom five Bond film and there's nothing fun about it outside of some of the opening. I've yet to be able to watch it all the way through in one sitting.

[Zorral]

12 hours ago, Iskaral Pust said:

wanted Marilyn Monroe for the part and hated the casting of Audrey Hepburn

Well, Monroe was making the Misfits when Tiffany was being made.  She was great in her role too, as were the rest.  It was a great film.

[DMC]

4 hours ago, Spockydog said:

The last four Bond films have been nothing short of abysmal. Fucking dreadful stuff.

4 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

Skyfall is a good Bond film

Yeah I'd put Skyfall near the top of all Bond films.  It's not like we're talking about the Algonquin Round Table here in terms of comparisons.  Still haven't seen the two most recent ones.

 

[Zorral]

The re-watch of Turn: Washington's Spies continues.  Last night the thought occurred the character of Simcoe, as it's viciousness it is played and presented could make him a convincing ancestor of Succession's Tom Wambsgans viciousness diluted with generations of not really succeeding.