Watch, watching next

[Ran]

Watched the original 1978 Superman in the special edition, which by some not-at-all-coincidence was added to HBO Max (Sweden) on Easter. Been a good while since I've seen the film, but it was a joy as ever. There's something so pure in its depiction of Superman and his abilities, and of course that's hugely helped by just how good Christopher Reeve was in the part, channeling a bit of Bringing Up Baby-era Cary Grant in his portrayal of Clark Kent. 

There are elements that leap out now that didn't before, most notably the played-for-laughs rescue of Frisky the cat... or rather, the played-for-laughs part where the little girl goes in to tell her mother a man swooped out of the sky to save Frisky, only for the unseen mother to complain that she's told her to stop lying, followed by the sound of a slap. It is of its era, of course. 

The double-jeopardy rescue of Lois and then catching the helicopter as well was just such a joyous moment. Smiled throughout. It feels rare for films to be able to capture that sort of magic anymore. The first Spider-Man had it, I'd say the Quicksilver scene from Days of Future Past as well... I guess The Matrix and the "I know Kung Fu" fight sequence as well? Basically those magical moments where you just get to be wowed by these superpowers.

Slowly making our way through Shadow and Bone and Outlander season 6. The fifth season was okay, but for some reason I'm enjoying this one more -- the introduction of Tom Christie (played by Mark Lewis Jones, who all-too-briefly played Shagga son of Dolf before GoT dropped the clansmen) and his family adds an interesting added complexity and tension. Shadow and Bone is enjoyable but is hampered by telling two essentially unrelated stories in the season.

And now I have watched, and immediately dove into re-watching, Park Chan-wook's Decision to Leave, a sort of romantic neo-noir film that's just mesmerizing in terms of direction and editing. Those who are familiar with Park's ouevre may be disappointed if they expect another Oldboy or The Handmaiden, because while the film touches on romance and obsession, it is very chaste and the violence in it is largely seen after the fact.

 

Tang Wei (probably still best known for her debut film, Ang Lee's erotic film Lust, Caution, which subsequently led to her being banned from the industry for a couple of years by the state film bureau) is one of the two leads, playing Song Seo-rae, a Chinese immigrant whose Korean husband is found dead after a mountain climbing accident, leading to an investigation that drags straight-laced, by-the-book, OCD Detective Hae-jun (played by Park Hae-il, who notably played a key role in Bong Joon-ho's Memories of Murder, a film that I kept flashing back to because there's some definite resonances between these two films, but they take them in very different directions) into waters he never expected.

It's very beguiling, and so far is absolutely worth a re-watch -- not just to see the clues and foreshadowing more clearly, but just to admire the technical aspects of the film. There's some amazing transitions in the film, and some real painterly composition.

The ending is haunting, too.

Edited April 10 by Ran

[dbunting]

I am trying to save Yellowjackets and Succession for a couple of binges so haven't started the new seasons yet. I did start Suits a series that is on Peacock right now. Only a couple episodes in and not sure I will make through a full season or not.

Finished The Night Agent  on Netflix.  It didn't get any better. The lead didn't suddenly develop any charisma. The plot only got worse.

Spoiler

So you bring the President to Camp David while the communication system is down there? They never would have landed there knowing it was down, knowing the VP's daughter was just kidnapped, the Director of the FBI murdered....and we say yeah, sure, the Secret Service would still go ahead and have the President land someplace where they had no communication system working and no explanation of why it was down.

They should have had the female lead be the star, more than she was, because she had a presence onscreen. 

[Heartofice]

Watched the first episode of Tulsa King with Sly Stallone. It has a really Ozark / Breaking Bad vibe where I can imagine it is just going to tread all over those well worn story beats over and over. However it was a lot of fun, Sly is watchable and I enjoy anything with Martin Starr in it. 

[DireWolfSpirit]

 

On 4/8/2023 at 6:21 PM, Zorral said:

But there has to be a girl, insisted Merian Cooper, the director of King Kong.  And she must scream -- though this one doesn't scream, much.

I was screaming at her through the TV when she ran down the hill during the hanging needlessly risking Zizka's neck who of course is  forced to now take on the mob of well armed guards to bail out her wreckless behavior.

Also wrt the plot there was some issue over a 2nd Pope under the King of France's protection. 

Eta: The Swedish giant pushing the horse off the cliff was new.

In the end the damsel did everyone a favor and jumped off another cliff.

Loved it.

[IlyaP]

The first preview for The Marvels landed tonight, and I for one enjoyed it. No big overarching plot, just a nice, isolated, nigh-Campbellian problem-solving narrative. Looks fun! Embrassing silliness and character dynamics? Sign me up!

[Heartofice]

22 minutes ago, IlyaP said:

The first preview for The Marvels landed tonight, and I for one enjoyed it. No big overarching plot, just a nice, isolated, nigh-Campbellian problem-solving narrative. Looks fun! Embrassing silliness and character dynamics? Sign me up!

Oh.

This is much more heavy on the Ms Marvel theme than I was really expecting. Curious move given that its the least watched Disney+ MCU show, to base a whole movie on it is kinda odd. 

Iman Vellani is good in that show but feels like the 'oh wow I'm in the Avengers' schtick has been done quite a lot already. Ms Marvel was at its best when it was this quirky creative show about a young asian girl, and it's worst when it was all zap zap superhero stuff. This looks like all the shittiest bits of that show with all the strengths removed. Worse, they have added the charisma free zone of Captain Marvel to shore things up.

Oh and I didn't even mention the garbage CGI. 

What the hell is going on at Disney?!

[TheLastWolf]

Finished BrBa

El Camino

BCS right up after exams

 

 

Whoa man

 

 

Best ever

 

 

 

GOAT

 

 

 

B Fuel Huell? I'm up

[IlyaP]

45 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

Iman Vellani is good in that show but feels like the 'oh wow I'm in the Avengers' schtick has been done quite a lot already. Ms Marvel was at its best when it was this quirky creative show about a young asian girl, and it's worst when it was all zap zap superhero stuff. This looks like all the shittiest bits of that show with all the strengths removed. Worse, they have added the charisma free zone of Captain Marvel to shore things up.

Having not seen Ms. Marvel (my attention span and, uh, lack thereof, is not really great, for passive media longer than 2 hours in length, so TVs and me...), I can only go off what's here, which looks charming enough. Teenage kid with hero wish fulfilment stuff meeting her hero, who's dealing with friction from someone in her past (at a guess), with the usual Marvel CGI shenaniganery that makes me ache for actual physical humans doing stuff, but...hey, if they play up the character dynamics and the comedy, I'm game. 

[Cas Stark]

28 minutes ago, TheLastWolf said:

Finished BrBa

El Camino

BCS right up after exams

 

 

Whoa man

 

 

Best ever

 

 

 

GOAT

 

 

 

B Fuel Huell? I'm up

Yes, it was an incredible show.  I would still put it number 2 behind The Sopranos as all time best ever, but I won't quibble at giving it GOAT.  Sometimes, it's good to give the audience the ending they [mostly] want.  

[Spockydog]

The Shield > Breaking Bad.

*runs away*

[IlyaP]

13 minutes ago, Spockydog said:

The Shield > Breaking Bad.

*runs away*

THE DROP BEARS ARE COMING FOR YOU.

[Tywin et al.]

Picked a movie last night I had no information about. It was under the horror section of Netflix, but should have been listed more as a dark comedy. The Trip is a fun B style film about a couple on vacation, they're trying to kill one another and then shit gets even stranger. Part of me wonders if they were trying to set a new record for most twists in two hours. Highly recommend if this is up your alley, and frankly the awful dubbing makes it even better. Noomi Repace is, at least for me, totally unrecognizable and I'd love to see Atle Antonsen in more things. The latter was an excellent villain (though everyone in the film is various levels of evil).  

[Zorral]

8 hours ago, DireWolfSpirit said:

The Swedish giant pushing the horse off the cliff was new

The best part.  Should have stopped watching once that happened.  But it happened right away!  How was I to know about The Girl?

The moment she arrived on screen I began thinking, "They want to do Braveheart," the historical film I loathe with every fiber of my being, which loathing began with The Royal Princess galloping off in the night without a cloak and retinue or anyone's notice to join a rebel.  What a barrel of pig swill that horrible Marquis de Sade fantasy of a flick.

[RumHam]

Breaking Bad isn't even the best show set in it's fictional universe... People remember the highs and overlook its weaknesses. 

I used to put either Sopranos or The Wire at #1 TV drama but as time went on I came to realize it's Deadwood. I really doubt we'll ever get anything like that on TV again. 

[TheLastWolf]

2 hours ago, Cas Stark said:

Yes, it was an incredible show.  I would still put it number 2 behind The Sopranos as all time best ever

After Peaky Blinders, that's next on my watchlist flwd by the film and Wire and maybe Boardwalk Empire. 

28 minutes ago, RumHam said:

Breaking Bad isn't even the best show set in it's fictional universe... People remember the highs and overlook its weaknesses.

BCS before anything on my list, so judgement after that. But from those who've seen it, they all say it's better more or less. 

But

It wouldnt exist without BrBa. Dunk and Egg is obv better than George's last few works but would it exist without them...

I admit to overlooking the weaknesses by choice, because the highs made em negligible. Like waaaay...

I've never felt for character's like this. Ever.

True Detective S1 tho is alltime peak TV. Like in a miniseries kinda way. Not worldbuilding multi season stuff. 

[Kalbear]

BCS understands itself better early on, and as a result has almost no fat. It starts out great and continues great and ends insanely great.

BrBa has an absolute stellar final season and great seasons before that, but it took a while trying to find its way and how it was going to go. It had major problems figuring out what to do with a number of characters and never really was able to integrate Marie. They also did Skyler incredibly bad. They learned a lot from that and made things work far better - Kim is much better utilized and plotted than Skyler ever was, and the number of other characters (like Chuck) are simply far better in general, given much more meat and storyline. 

[RumHam]

39 minutes ago, TheLastWolf said:

After Peaky Blinders, that's next on my watchlist flwd by the film and Wire and maybe Boardwalk Empire. 

BCS before anything on my list, so judgement after that. But from those who've seen it, they all say it's better more or less. 

But

It wouldnt exist without BrBa. Dunk and Egg is obv better than George's last few works but would it exist without them...

I admit to overlooking the weaknesses by choice, because the highs made em negligible. Like waaaay...

I've never felt for character's like this. Ever.

True Detective S1 tho is alltime peak TV. Like in a miniseries kinda way. Not worldbuilding multi season stuff. 

I never really liked that logic. Couldn't you extend it to then say that the first movie was the best one, because without it we wouldn't have movies? 

Anyway my statment wasn't meant as a criticism of you, people like what they like and I'm really glad you enjoyed it so much. It was quite great. 

I just take issue with a few things 

Spoiler

Like the cousins being over the top, the season two build up fake out and contrivance of that, Gus' spider-sense, the box cutter episode, and the fact that when they wrote the "walter buys a huge machine gun" scene they had no idea what it was for, and then landed on Nazis. The whole "sure our guy is bad but...Nazis!" thing irks me a little. More than that though they should have planned better. 

I also think it's more of an action/plot based story than a character driven one. I prefer the latter. It does have some great character moments though. 

I love True Dective seasons one and three and am one of the few people who thinks two isn't that bad. I've watched it a few times and it definitly has some cringe moments but overall I still like it. I'm excited for the fourth season. 

[TheLastWolf]

38 minutes ago, Kalnestk Oblast said:

They also did Skyler incredibly bad.

Ok this was an issue i accept 

10 minutes ago, RumHam said:

1. I never really liked that logic. Couldn't you extend it to then say that the first movie was the best one, because without it we wouldn't have movies? 

2. Anyway my statment wasn't meant as a criticism of you, people like what they like and I'm really glad you enjoyed it so much. It was quite great

1. More like parents being able to raise younger kids better since learnt how and how not to from the elder ones

Ok i admit to personal exp

2. And thank you, it was constructive

Spoiler

The machine gun thing was ridiculous yet i somehow made it work for me since felina and all

Edited April 11 by TheLastWolf

[Tywin et al.]

If I'm stuck with one season from one show, my first thought would be this:

 

[RumHam]

Yeah don't get me wrong it worked, I love the show. I just think it's a teir below Deadwood/Sopranos/The Wire (I go back and forth about The Leftovers joining that list)