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

[williamjm]

29 minutes ago, RhaenysBee said:

Aw I tried. I watched two episodes I think, but I just don’t vibe with Angel. I might give it another go when I don’t have anything else to watch. 

It's been a long time so I can't remember specific episodes in season 1 all that well but I seem to remember liking the show more as it went along.

[Cas Stark]

16 hours ago, Heartofice said:

Elvis is an odd movie.

Reminds me of something said about Zach Synder movies: that he doesn’t film ‘scenes’ , he films ‘moments’. Like everything in his movies is some AWESOME EPIC MOMENT, usually slow mo or a montage.

I thought Baz Luhrmann was better than that, but this felt like a Synder movie. It’s exhausting to watch, the camera never sits still, it’s zooming in and out, there is never a moment it stops and just breathes. Everything is part of some montage or voice over, or a ‘moment’

I can’t say I enjoyed it at all, I wanted to like it, but for a movie about Elvis it never made Elvis into a person, nobody felt real, because Lurhmann seems more interested in cool visual and epic moments than human emotion and depth. 

It was definitely like a Baz movie.  I thought it was objectively bad, but somehow strangely moving in the tragic depiction of Elvis Presley stuck in the grip of Tom Parker.

[Cas Stark]

37 minutes ago, RhaenysBee said:

Aw I tried. I watched two episodes I think, but I just don’t vibe with Angel. I might give it another go when I don’t have anything else to watch. 

I never got the people who preferred Angel over Buffy, I always thought it was inferior all down the line.  Still worth watching.

[Zorral]

Why it took 43 years to bring ‘Kindred’ to TV

https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2023/01/08/kindred-tv-journey-octavia-butler/

Quote

.... “We bought it [the Kindred series pitch] in the room,” said Kate Lambert, the executive vice president of series development at the cabler who is behind critically lauded series such as “Atlanta, “Reservation Dogs” and “The Bear.” “To me it was an immediate, like, why wouldn’t we do this? It was an obvious yes.” ....

Though we've got quite a few enthusiastic viewers here of Reservation Dogs and The Bear, it seems nobody is watching / has watched Kindred though, like nobody did The Peripheral.  Which seems odd, you know, considering the taste of this board for all things sf/fnal, right?

[Heartofice]

57 minutes ago, Cas Stark said:

It was definitely like a Baz movie.  I thought it was objectively bad, but somehow strangely moving in the tragic depiction of Elvis Presley stuck in the grip of Tom Parker.

I think maybe Baz's movies have past me by, I thought the last one I saw was Moulin Rouge which wasn't for me but I didn't think it was bad, but then I remembered I did see Great Gatsby and that was actually pretty shit, probably had many of the same problems as Elvis.

So yes actually I think maybe this Elvis movie was objectively bad. I was willing to overlook Tom Hank's bizarre turn as something that was intentionally so to fit the larger than life quality of the movie, but by the end I think he was just misjudging it all.

Also, I know Austin Butler got a lot of praise for his performance, but I really couldn't connect him and Elvis at all. He seemed to get the voice right, but he never captured that macho charism Elvis had. Butler looks like he could be in One Direction, he looked like a boy playing dress up

[Cas Stark]

7 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

I think maybe Baz's movies have past me by, I thought the last one I saw was Moulin Rouge which wasn't for me but I didn't think it was bad, but then I remembered I did see Great Gatsby and that was actually pretty shit, probably had many of the same problems as Elvis.

So yes actually I think maybe this Elvis movie was objectively bad. I was willing to overlook Tom Hank's bizarre turn as something that was intentionally so to fit the larger than life quality of the movie, but by the end I think he was just misjudging it all.

Also, I know Austin Butler got a lot of praise for his performance, but I really couldn't connect him and Elvis at all. He seemed to get the voice right, but he never captured that macho charism Elvis had. Butler looks like he could be in One Direction, he looked like a boy playing dress up

I agree.  I'm not a huge fan of Baz myself.  I ddin't like Moulin Rouge, but I accepted it was well done.  Hated Gatsby.  Hated It. I do truly love Romeo+Juliet in all of its crazyness.

Elvis is like Marilyn.  It's almost impossible to find an actor who can do the charisma justice. 

[RhaenysBee]

16 minutes ago, Cas Stark said:

I agree.  I'm not a huge fan of Baz myself.  I ddin't like Moulin Rouge, but I accepted it was well done.  Hated Gatsby.  Hated It. I do truly love Romeo+Juliet in all of its crazyness.

Elvis is like Marilyn.  It's almost impossible to find an actor who can do the charisma justice. 

How would you say it compares to Blonde? If you’ve watched that. I haven’t watched either, but tonight may be the night, because I need to numb my brain out with something. 

[Cas Stark]

1 hour ago, RhaenysBee said:

How would you say it compares to Blonde? If you’ve watched that. I haven’t watched either, but tonight may be the night, because I need to numb my brain out with something. 

Blonde is much more a straight drama without the crazy Baz montage flourishes and cuts.  It [Blonde] is unrelentingly depressing.  The actress who playes Monroe I thought was very good, with the caveat that no actress will ever really capture her essense.  As a 'film' it was okay, very surface then this happened, and then this happened, without giving much characterization beyond events.  

ETA...I just remembered there are some  surrealistic scenes which are kind of weird/distasteful, at least they were to me, I could have done without the talking fetus and some of the other similar stuff.

[Ran]

3 hours ago, williamjm said:

It's been a long time so I can't remember specific episodes in season 1 all that well but I seem to remember liking the show more as it went along.

Yes, Angel was a slow start. But given that Buffy was something Rhaenys was bouncing off in the early going, I'd strongly suggest she give Angel a similar chance. Certainly, two of the best episodes of season 1 are episodes 8 and 9... so maybe at least going that far is worth it, and if those don't do it for you... well, I don't know. I mean, the best season of the show is its last season, almost undisputably, so I think a lot of people would urge you to push on regardless! But if it's not for you, it's not for you.

[dog-days]

I've been sick with a non-Covid bug this weekend, so spent today lying in bed watching Andor on my laptop. For the first five-or-so episodes I was pretty lukewarm about it and thinking about giving up. It seemed to be a rather slow and boring heist movie, albeit one with a very striking star given to interacting with most of the other characters by gazing into their eyes with a lost puppy sort of look. Mild spoilers follow. 

Spoiler

But I got more into it as it went on. I enjoyed the look into elite/Coruscant society in the Mon Mothma plot. It wasn't as creative visually or in terms of fantasy anthropology as if could maybe have been, but it was still a worthwhile change from sandpits in the Outer Rim. The jail scenes were great (and oddly reminiscent of Severance) and now I'm concerned about what happened to Gollum. Stellan Sgarsgard/Luthen was my favourite character. Loved his switch from grim backwoods businessman to extrovert antiques dealer. It'll be interesting to see how he develops in S2. 

Musically I thought it was a bit dull that they just went with a brass band for the final episode. Fiona Shaw tells us that Ferrix's traditions and people are special, but some slightly more daring aesthetic choices could have sold that better. (This is normally the point where someone says: 'actually, dog-days, each of the instruments in that scene was custom-designed for the show, can only be played in the Phrygian mode, and the individual musicians needed special training before the funeral scene could be filmed'.) 

 

[JGP]

I watched S1 [I guess, we'll see if it gets renewed] of Refn's Copenhagen Cowboy. As @Ran previously surmised, it definitely went in the supernatural direction but after only 6 episodes not conclusively so. This didn't bother me much because Refn was also heading in that direction in Too Old To Die Young [rip S2 of that]

Still processing, but I'll say I was deeply immersed if not emotionally invested. Refn likes to play in the extreme area between individual and personality so it's hard, for me, to really emotionally invest in his characters.

Still thinking about the pig theme on the whole.    

[RhaenysBee]

I just watched Whatthefuckdid. Sorry. I mean to say I watched The Menu. I cannot fathom how something can achieve to be both morbidly sick and ridiculously boring. There was about 20 minutes of story and 100 minutes of acting and cinematography extravaganza. 

[Zorral]

2 hours ago, Ran said:

 Angel was a slow start.

The sizzle associated with Buffy only arrived with the Return of Spike, which is to be expected.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Watched The Pale Blue Eye, a period Netflix movie set around West Point in the beautiful winter landscape of Hudson River and Hudson River Valley. Christian Bale is a very watchable fellow who made his bones by being a great detective in New York City, now retired -- I think -- no one bothered to make clear every detail you know  -- in the area, where he lives in a quite fabulous, very snug and comfy cabin, whereas everyone else lives at the Academy or in vast mansions or hangs out in a tavern.  To solve a macabre murder, and the following ones, he immediately spots the young Edgar Allan Poe, who is older than is fellow cadets and from the south and very educated -- speaks French! -- and can solve all sorts of puzzles -- as the perfect sidekick for sleuthing out the crimes.  He's played by Harry Melling in a perfectly satisfactory manner.  Period detail is terrific, 1830 (same era as Gentleman Jack).  The macabre supernatural elements fit in very well in this region at that time -- recall it's around here that Joseph Smith receives his earliest revelations in 1828; spiritualism was well entrenched by then as well, with many if not most practitioners young women/girls.

 

[Ramsay B.]

I watched The Menu the other day and thought it was solid. Nothing crazy and some things were predictable but I was entertained. 
 

Spoiler

The fire scene at the end reminded me of the one from Midsommar.

 

[RhaenysBee]

Okay, okay. As per your recommendations I keep pushing through, because I trust y’all. 

But dang  real men don’t fck around with a ring for 7 hours of screen time, don’t get stung a bit here, drown a bit there, fall over a bit everywhere and then NOT destroy it. Our boy Angel get proper torture for his precious, don’t even melt when on fire AND destroy his ring all on his own like a boss. Who’s da man, Mr Frodo? 

sorry sorry, I just had to have a dig at it. I’m giving it a chance, I promise. 

[williamjm]

37 minutes ago, Zorral said:

The sizzle associated with Buffy only arrived with the Return of Spike, which is to be expected.

The scene where Spike is narrating Angel's good deeds from the top of a building is wonderful.

[DireWolfSpirit]

On 1/7/2023 at 5:11 PM, Heartofice said:

Elvis is an odd movie.

Reminds me of something said about Zach Synder movies: that he doesn’t film ‘scenes’ , he films ‘moments’. Like everything in his movies is some AWESOME EPIC MOMENT, usually slow mo or a montage.

I thought Baz Luhrmann was better than that, but this felt like a Synder movie. It’s exhausting to watch, the camera never sits still, it’s zooming in and out, there is never a moment it stops and just breathes. Everything is part of some montage or voice over, or a ‘moment’

I can’t say I enjoyed it at all, I wanted to like it, but for a movie about Elvis it never made Elvis into a person, nobody felt real, because Lurhmann seems more interested in cool visual and epic moments than human emotion and depth. 

Yeah a movie titled Elvis shouldve been able to deliver a bit more than was delivered here imo.

The savings grace for me was the Beale St scenes depicting Big Mama Thornton, Little Richard and Howling Wolf.

^^^Those cats can never get too much scene time.

[JGP]

No one maybe but me will care, but I have just discovered that Devotion is on Paramount+ so yeah. 

Laters.

[Veltigar]

18 hours ago, Cas Stark said:

It was definitely like a Baz movie.  I thought it was objectively bad, but somehow strangely moving in the tragic depiction of Elvis Presley stuck in the grip of Tom Parker.

Elvis was a terrible film. Probably the worst one I saw last year. Unfortunately, it had the kernel of a great movie in it. I still maintain that the original Elvis trailer is probably the best trailer for a film I have seen since at least the first teaser trailer for Interstellar. I wish we had gotten to see the film that the trailer seemed to promise instead of this lurid Luhrmann shit.

11 hours ago, Ramsay B. said:

I watched The Menu the other day and thought it was solid. Nothing crazy and some things were predictable but I was entertained. 
 

  Reveal hidden contents

The fire scene at the end reminded me of the one from Midsommar.

 

I had a blast watching The Menu. I love all the actors in it, but Ana Taylor Joy and Nicholas Hoult in particular are two of my favorite actors working today. Couple that to the fact that I also adore fine dining, I thought it was a wonderful combo.

On 12/30/2022 at 11:04 PM, Corvinus85 said:

Stick with it. And really I thought the first arc was solid but it does get even better.

I didn't have time to continue watching it, but I did manage to finish episode 4. It does seem to be going in an interesting direction with the intra-agency rivalry of the Empire. I was also surprised by the weaponry on display

Spoiler

Were the rebels Cassian meets carrying AK-47's?

 

[Ran]

Watched The Pale Blue Eye as well. It's pretty mediocre, I'm afraid, but Henry Melling is great as Poe, and Christian Bale is as always pretty good. The cinematography wasn't bad. 

Spoiler

The twist reveal at the end certainly explains something of why Bale took the part, and there's something of The Prestige to this idea of his character having knowledge all along that the audience is directed away from. It's nowhere near as good a film as The Prestige, of course.