Watch, Watched, Watching: Looking for the Light

[dog-days]

42 minutes ago, Iskaral Pust said:

We tried Andor and have set it aside after a couple of episodes.  My wife found it too slow and boring, plus no reason to care about the main character yet.  I thought it was much higher quality than Mandalorian or Boba Fett, but the entire Disney Star Wars TV blitz has fallen pretty flat since the opening season of Mandalorian — when a change in tone papered over very thin world-building.

I also found the first couple of episodes dull, and was about to give up – it only really pulled me in during the second half. Worth persevering with.

(I speak as someone who doesn't have much patience/attention span for a lot of television.) 

Gave up on Boba Fett. Liked the Mandalorian to a degree, at least enough to watch both series. 

[Iskaral Pust]

3 hours ago, Argonath Diver said:

Did you two get through the third episode? The show starts with a couple pretty clear set 3 episode arcs, so eps 3 and 6 were particularly compelling. That said, I guess it's not for everyone and if she wants a more recognizable lead, no worries. 

Thanks.  Perhaps we’ll go back for another episode.  I think we only watched two.  When we left it, no-one was eager to help him get off-planet because his “friends” all distrusted him and had been burned by him before.  The lead actor isn’t the problem — the production quality was pretty good, and much better than the Tatooine shows — but the slow story, small scope and stakes so far, and no reason to care what happens to the main character were limiting her interest.  It doesn’t help that all of the other SW TV shows had forfeited her otherwise enormous goodwill toward the franchise. 

[KingintheNorth4]

I watched House Party (2023) earlier tonight, and all I have to say is some movies don't need to be remade. 

[Teng Ai Hui]

This weekend I had a Tom Hanks double feature, Finch and A Man Called Otto.  I enjoyed both movies.  I thought Otto was a bit better as I had a moment in Finch where I couldn't suspend disbelief.  Yet, I have no desire to rewatch either of them as they both had some sad moments.

[Veltigar]

9 hours ago, Iskaral Pust said:

Thanks.  Perhaps we’ll go back for another episode.  I think we only watched two.  When we left it, no-one was eager to help him get off-planet because his “friends” all distrusted him and had been burned by him before.  The lead actor isn’t the problem — the production quality was pretty good, and much better than the Tatooine shows — but the slow story, small scope and stakes so far, and no reason to care what happens to the main character were limiting her interest.  It doesn’t help that all of the other SW TV shows had forfeited her otherwise enormous goodwill toward the franchise. 

I was in the same headspace as your wife concerning goodwill for the franchise and I also found the beginning quite difficult. I guess we're so conditioned to expect a certain thing from SW now that it is hard to adjust to a different take. I did restart it eventually however, after more than a month of break due to travel at the recommendation of @Corvinus85 and others, which was very fortunate for me as it picks up considerable speed from episode 4 onwards to become one of the best TV-show of last year.

There is a famous actor from LOTR who is included in later episodes whose arc in particular floored me. In fact, his last scene in the first season was probably my favourite moment of television in 2022. So there is something to look forward to definitely  

[Ran]

From the awards thread:

 

Watched Sarah Polley's Women Talking. I am a bit divided on it. I think the very opening section and then the last 20-30 minutes are very powerful. But everything in between is, IMO, pretty shaky. The blunt, obvious didacticism of the script is not helped by the odd diction often used, a strange poeticism that maybe is meant to capture something of the Low German of the Mennonites, but just seems jarringly strange for a group of women who are completely illiterate and don't even know what lies beyond the boundaries of their colony. It's Sarah Polley (and Towes, the original author of the novel being adapted, I'd guess) speaking, not these Mennonite women, is the sense I get.

It also lacks any real sense of urgency in a lot of it. It's a very "dead" movie in a lot of ways, which is a shame. The way any moment of drama just ends in quiet and moving on to something else felt so strange. I remember reading the news pieces about it years ago when it first came out, and after finishing the movie I decided to read a long Vice report following-up a couple of years later, and I feel like the film doesn't live up to the potential of the horror of what happened.

Even the performers are largely flat for me, and yet it's a terrific cast. Ben Whishaw stands out as the soft-spoken teacher who's invited to record the minutes of the women's meeting to discuss what to do, he's incredibly expressive and for me the most emotional scene in the film turned on him, which I feel like Polley could never possibly have intended.

Also finished the 2nd (and final) season of Avenue 5, which was diverting enough with its silliness and its insults, but I understand why it was cancelled.

[Jace, Extat]

wADDAYA gonna DO?? 

Rome 2.0 

[Ran]

8 minutes ago, Secretary of Eumenes said:

wADDAYA gonna DO?? 

Rome 2.0 

Speaking of Rome, I did finish my rewatch of it. It's a damned shame the 2nd season was so rushed, and final. I've always read that HBO bitterly regretted the cancellation, because Blu-ray sales were through the roof. 

[Jace, Extat]

10 minutes ago, Ran said:

Speaking of Rome, I did finish my rewatch of it. It's a damned shame the 2nd season was so rushed, and final. I've always read that HBO bitterly regretted the cancellation, because Blu-ray sales were through the roof. 

 

Your Grace 

[Ran]

1 minute ago, Secretary of Eumenes said:

 

Great scene. McKidd and Purefoy knocked those Egypt scenes out of the park. I was going to mention Antony's death as well, but moreso his death, his bitter, emotive grief when he's told (falsely) that Cleopatra has killed herself rather than waiting for him.

Pullo and Cicero is also really great.

[Jace, Extat]

You know, for all the times that I quoted SCARY MOVIE and its endless (worthy and otherwise) clonies I don't know if anyone ever actually

Really

Asked me

And had, like the understanding of what-kind-of-animal-they're-talking-too to understand what my answer would be to the pivotal question... 

...

...

...

...

...

???

???

???

???

"Hello Drew!?!?!"

[WarGalley]

Rome has a lot of good scenes but I think my favorite (at least with Vorenus) is “I AM A SON OF HADES!!”

 

 

[Zorral]

Road House (1989) What a secure time it was that something like this could be a movie.  OTOH, I swear to gd, this is kinda what the Jack Reacher novels went for. (First Jack Reacher novel was 1997.)  Here we have James Dalton, a bouncer who is not only a legend for cleaning up night clubs, but the whole towns and counties that are run by thugs and other nogoodniks in flyover country nowherelandia. Then he moves on.

In this film, the nowherelandia is in Kansas – or is it Missouri? Not only are the reviewers kinda confused about this but it seems the film’s characters are as well. Our Hero Dalton has a network of bouncers, instead of marines and Big Gummit D.C. allies that Reacher’s got, but still, but still a network, or at least Sam Elliott. So it’s also the lone gunman who cleans up the western town under a siege of terror by local thugs, except Dalton does it with a degree in philosophy from Harvard and martial arts skillz instead of his two six guns.  Not to mention the best hair and exquisite wearing of pants (not jeans!) that nobody else can get away wearing because they'd look so stupid.

Other entertainments that RH appears to make part of a pattern are the Travolta Saturday Night Fever (1977) and Urban Cowboy (1980), which may have set off this examination of fairly specific, but disparate US cultures in connection with matters outside the law or accepted mores. Flash Dance (1983), Dirty Dancing (1987) of course, not only because of the amount of dancing in RH (though it is fairly muted -- just like the female characters are in RH -- unlike in SNF, FD, UC, or DD), through pop music combined with pro and non-pro dancing. Here are supposedly normal people like us who loved combining dancing for fun as well as going for our personal best. But only DD and RH star Patrick Swayze at his peak of gorgeousness. Not to mention equal peak Sam Elliott gorgeousness showing up in RH,  in a different manner, as sidekick.

I suppose we must also think of Cocktail (1988) with hyper annoying Tom Cruise? Which I’ve never seen it, though I think I tried to watch it, once.  Now that is a truly stupid movie – just read the story line!  https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/cocktail-1988

But then, for me, anything that features Tom Cruise (except when he was paired with Paul Newman) is unwatchable.

There was a Road House 2 (2006). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Road_House_2  It went straight to video.

O. Dear. They Say there’s a Road House remake in production. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Road_House_(upcoming_film)

 

 

[Jace, Extat]

5 minutes ago, WarGalley said:

Rome has a lot of good scenes but I think my favorite (at least with Vorenus) is “I AM A SON OF HADES!!”

 

 

 

[Ran]

1 hour ago, Zorral said:

Road House (1989) What a secure time it was that something like this could be a movie.  OTOH, I swear to gd, this is kinda what the Jack Reacher novels went for. (First Jack Reacher novel was 1997.)  Here we have James Dalton, a bouncer who is not only a legend for cleaning up night clubs, but the whole towns and counties that are run by thugs and other nogoodniks in flyover country nowherelandia. Then he moves on.

 

Sean T. Collins, who I worked with on annotating A Game of Thrones  way back in the day, and has been writing TV criticism for a bunch of different venues (New York magazine, Vulture, I think Rolling Stones, etc.), did a one year project in which he posted daily blogs about Road House.

Even published a handsome, limited edition collection of his essays. You can read them here, or at least most of them. I'm amazed he was able to find so many ways to riff on the film.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

Glad to see the lovefest for Rome. I still maintain S1 is one of the 25 best seasons of TV ever made. 

 

[Jace, Extat]

54 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Glad to see the lovefest for Rome. I still maintain S1 is one of the 25 best seasons of TV ever made. 

 

Partial to Season 2. 

Also, I don't understand why people like Wrath of Khan so much. 

ToMP is far superior. 

The Wrath of Kahn is a great action flick. But I saw it from the library shortly after JJ Trek came out. 

I'd never really seen Star Trek before

And I didn't get it 

Like, JJ Trek was indeed a slick action flick. Mr. Plinkett was right about it. 

But c'mon! 

Have you seen Drumhead? 

 

 

[Zorral]

2 hours ago, Ran said:

You can read them here, or at least most of them. I'm amazed he was able to find so many ways to riff on the film

Since I just watched RH, that's interesting -- and watched it because I stumbled upon it on Prime, while having no interest in watching much of anything because too tried.

Like your friend, I have no trouble finding all these ways to look at it, including though so many of the reviewers in 1989 cocked snooks and sneered about it, it's actually a good action film with lots of other stuff going on, which is the kind thing that attracted so many of us to the Reacher novels.  The action sequences are what we see praised here over and over as making for a movie that's fun to watch. Alas though,  the ridiculous part is the entire premise of a bouncer and national fame for being part of a community improvement - gentrification.  Nevertheless, I doff my sombrero to whomever had the brain storm to translate all those concerns of crime vs gentrification and the hierarchies of clublandia, all constant subjects then in the era, into this concept!  That is if you lived where all this is happening and at once, anyway, as we did.

Alas, though the site's quality of screen shots or photos or whatever they are dreadful quality.  No way at all do they convey how purely gorgeous both Patrick Swayze and Sam Elliott were that year! 

P.S.  O my!  I just love this from your friend's section, "The Mullet" --

Quote

 

They’re establishing Dalton’s near-superhuman ability to detect, defuse, and defeat any bar’s bad element. They’re demonstrating what happens when his cooler-sense starts to tingle.

Thanks to these three top-tier filmmakers, Dalton’s mullet is as meaningful and memorable as Batman’s cowl or Darth Vader’s helmet.

 

This comment is so skillful, observing that we are not in the least mistake that Dalton's character is one of those larger than life sorts, like Reacher, or Spider Man (who is actually really just like us, even Batman isn't, being a zillionaire and all) -- while making fun of both the superhero genre and affectionately ribbing this film he must really love! And demonstrating his deep and up close knowledge of how those films are made, by naming

Quote

 Die Hard, RoboCop, Predator, Commando, Total Recall, Basic Instinct, Tombstone.

who worked the editing room, guys who edit those kinds of films, if not the actual superhero films.

In spite of this superheroing, I too have a lot of affection for Road House because 1) the sex parts really feel sexy, 2) I spent a lot of time in my earlier in the famous Texas outside of gigamous Houston roadhouse, Gilley's (where Urban Cowboy did scenes).  That world is gone, as much as the world of Danceteria and the Paradise Garage.  They were of their time.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

1 hour ago, Secretary of Eumenes said:

Partial to Season 2. 

Why? The story is worse and it loses a few key actors.

Quote

Also, I don't understand why people like Wrath of Khan so much. 

Because it's amazing? (In that it's really dumb but a lot of fun)

Quote

This really is a horrifying clip. 

[Jace, Extat]

41 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

 

This really is a horrifying clip. 

Eyes are in the beholder, I suppose. 

In some endings, I guess.