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Watch, Watched, Watching: Looking for the Light


Ramsay B.

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8 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

Shotgun Wedding is all the stupid fun you could ask for. Also, J Lo must be a vampire. You are not suppose to look like that at 53... But God bless her at the same time.

You shut your goddamn dirty mouth!

J Lo is an angel. not a vampire. 

Yeah, I think I'm going see this. 

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Rewatching Jack Bauer save the world eight...*checks notes*..nine times.  I enjoy the ridiculousness.  It would take a devotee more committed than me to document all of the absurdity, but watching the season 1 finale right now...

Spoiler

Immediately after he kills Dennis Hopper there is a boat that was supposed to take the "Drazens" away.  Now, it'd be one thing if the show just ignored this when Jack goes on his hero-spree and kills them all, but they actually have a shot of that boat driving away IMMEDIATELY after he kills Hopper/Drazen.  Never addressed, why they would either peace out or, ya know, have a great shot to kill Jack.  I mean, that's TV, but the way they actually show and emphasize this plot hole makes it seem like they are actively trying to piss me off.

 

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M3gan is a much better movie than appearances would suggest, which I think is basically what everyone is saying, but it's true. For some reason the creators of this movie decided to make it look like one of these terrible Annabelle Chucky doll movies, but with computers.

And it's a Blumhouse movie so expectations should be low.

However it was a ton of fun, it seemed to know where to draw the line between quite smart sci fi commentary and dumb schlock horror, even if there were times where it went too far in the dumb direction for my tastes. 

I think it has an above average script and is well written, the plot zips along, there are some funny lines and honestly it's well above what you would expect from a Blumhouse horror. 

There is one element where you see what kind of movie this is however, some of the acting is really reminiscent of lower budget horror movies. It's interesting to see actors who are 'fine' but mostly forgettable work with a script that is actually pretty good, like their limitations are very much exposed by it. 

But otherwise, really enjoyed.

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6 hours ago, Heartofice said:

M3gan is a much better movie than appearances would suggest, which I think is basically what everyone is saying, but it's true. For some reason the creators of this movie decided to make it look like one of these terrible Annabelle Chucky doll movies, but with computers.

I thoroughly enjoyed it although it was rather cheesy at times.

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On 1/28/2023 at 6:50 PM, Larry of the Lake said:

Watched White Noise with my gf this week.  Was pretty cool, love the book and this seems pretty true to it, they definitely leaned into the comedy aspect of it.  Have to reread the book now, there was one thing that I think was a significant change but maybe I just have a shit memory (it's been over 20 years).  

Don Cheadle nailed the Murray role, incredible casting and performance.  On that note the casting was excellent all around, not a huge Adam Driver fan but I really enjoyed his performance.  

I never read the book, but I loved the movie. Not what I was expecting from the trailer!!

And the end credit scene was just perfect. The camera panning back to Andre Benjamin's character in the aisle and again in the checkout line had me in stitches. Great movie. 

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I watched Belle, Mamoru Hosoda's latest. I wasn't a huge fan of Mirai, his last one, I thought that was a bit confused and aimless, so I was a little worried by this, coz a mashup of anime school romance and cyberpunk beauty and the beast had the potential to go very wrong.

Instead, he fucking smacks it out the park. Almost definitely Hosoda's best film, and far more than the sum of the description above. It's brilliant.

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Watched Ep 3 of The Last of Us  totally unexpected episode. Not going to give anything away but lots of people said they teared up more than once during it. Not what I expected from an Apocalypse series based on a video game. Great performances.

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Blonde

What to say? I agree with Ran's take that it works better as a horror film than I biopic (an opinion Mark Kermode shares BTW). The film it reminds me of a bit is Requiem for a Dream, which Aranofsky has described as an "urban horror film". It doesn't have the same grit or style but to me they're kind of similar. 

That is to say, it's a great film that I'm not likely to see again any time soon. It's beautifully crafted, the performances are great, Ana De Armas is incredible, the score is perfect, but man is it merciless at times. 

You know a film has really set people off when it doesn't just get negative reviews but it also gets bad faith criticism, and I think this film gets that. One review I saw suggested that maybe the director was getting some kind of "personal" satisfaction  from depicting events in certain scenes. That's just childish. It also said MM is depicted as being "ditzy", when It's kind of the opposite. She's actually being shown as being quite clever and insightful. But also deeply insecure and frustrated. The Marilyn persona is at once a shield, a cage, and a target.

Spoiler

It's also been accused of being anti-choice, by Planned Parenthood no less. I don't think this works because of the way events in the film are portrayed, but they do have a point about how the fetus is depicted. 

 

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Watched a horror film called Mandrake at the weekend, (ostensibly) set in northern Ireland. It was good - a slow burn, quietly horrible, horror film. From the blurb I was expecting it to be a bit more ambiguous than it was. Didn't give me any nightmares. :thumbsup:

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6 hours ago, Deadlines? What Deadlines? said:

Blonde

What to say? I agree with Ran's take that it works better as a horror film than I biopic (an opinion Mark Kermode shares BTW). The film it reminds me of a bit is Requiem for a Dream, which Aranofsky has described as an "urban horror film". It doesn't have the same grit or style but to me they're kind of similar. 

That is to say, it's a great film that I'm not likely to see again any time soon. It's beautifully crafted, the performances are great, Ana De Armas is incredible, the score is perfect, but man is it merciless at times. 

You know a film has really set people off when it doesn't just get negative reviews but it also gets bad faith criticism, and I think this film gets that. One review I saw suggested that maybe the director was getting some kind of "personal" satisfaction  from depicting events in certain scenes. That's just childish. It also said MM is depicted as being "ditzy", when It's kind of the opposite. She's actually being shown as being quite clever and insightful. But also deeply insecure and frustrated. The Marilyn persona is at once a shield, a cage, and a target.

 

I don't know... I mean, can we be done with tragiporn movies about MM and Princess Di? It seems every couple of years there's a new one out in time for awards season. I tried watching this but I literally could not stomach it. I found it overwrought, exploitative, and reductive. Far from being an insightful portrayal of someone I am sure was a layered and complex human being, it seemed to linger way too long on certain scenes which reduced her to being a gorgeous naked mess*. And the abortion/imaginary fetus scene was frankly ludicrous and literally beating the audience over the head with 'abortionisabadchoice!1'.  

That's just my reading, of course, and purely subjective. But as a woman, I'd love to see more renditions of famous women - biopic or imagined - who didn't end up dying horrifically. This fixation on 2 specific women seems bizarre, tbh. 

 

*I'm aware this was based on a Joyce Carol Oates novel and isn't meant to be biographical in the traditional sense. 

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Not exactly a movie, but I went to see the National Theatre's Henry V starring Kit Harrington. I gave this format a chance a few months ago when I went to see Emilia Clarke in the Sea Gull. Back then I was very pleasantly surprised by the experience of watching that play in a movie theatre.

Not as good as the real thing perhaps, but a good ersatz experience if you are unable to go to London physically. Since that one was so enjoyable, I decided to give Henry V a shot. I like certain parts of the the play a lot and I have a great fondness for some of the earlier adaptations (particularly the Kenneth Branagh film from 1989).

This version just pales by comparison unfortunately. It transposes the play to a modern setting, a thing I tend not to like and it didn't manage to win me over. It was rather pedestrianly done, apart from some choice pieces of music and a nice décor evoking the English flag.

The worst part however, was Kit Harrington. As an actor he is so utterly devoid of charisma that he just is not credible as Henry V. Compare his boring, dead-eyed delivery of the St. Crispin's day speech with the soaring, twinkle-in-the-eye-madness that is present in Branagh's rendition. Who could be inspired by such a king?

When Branagh does it, you feel like you want to take up arms yourself and go wreak havoc on the flower of French chivalry. With Harrington's version on the other hand, I felt like I wanted to slink out of the theatre and desert into the night.

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Was there musical accompaniment? Because I will say Branagh's performance of the speech is very much elevated by Patrick Doyle's swelling score.

Not to say that I have any doubts that Harington is not the actor that Branagh is. But musical scores can be very, very powerful.

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AMC got so much right with their adaptation of Interview with the Vampire and so much wrong with Mayfair Witches. Sam Reid as Lestat was fantastic casting. Jack Huston as Lasher is the exact opposite. I'm sorry but there is nothing about him or his portrayal that demonstrates how he held generations of women under his thrall. He's just a creep in the show. Ugh. Also not sold on Alexandra Daddario as Rowan.

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Searching around for more stuff to watch on Apple TV+, started WeCrashed, the show about WeWork and all the craziness behind it.

Main thought is I really don't know what to make of Jared Leto. I have an irrational (probably quite rational) hatred of him due to his extreme lack of self awareness.. mainly fuelled by his godawful band and what he did with the Joker. 

But then for some reason I'm enjoying his stuff right now. I know his performance in House of Gucci is really on the line between hilarious fun and 'what the fuck were you thinking', and what he's doing in WeCrashed is playing a similar game. 

Again his performance is very over the top, but it sort of fits. Adam Neumann is a weird and creepy figure and I think it would be a tough job to make an audience understand how such a fraud was able to con people for so long, but so far I think Leto is pulling it off. 

So now I'm wondering if Leto isn't some sort of acting genius. 

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16 hours ago, Ran said:

Was there musical accompaniment? Because I will say Branagh's performance of the speech is very much elevated by Patrick Doyle's swelling score.

There was. Not as good as in Branagh's version, but in general I thought it was a good effort on the musical front :) 

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