Watch, Watched, Watching: Start another thread already

[TheLastWolf]

I binge shows, ace tests and finally watch a movie after eons, pop in here to find there's no thread left and it's upto me again to start yet another one with an unimaginative title. 

So there's Bohemian Rhapsody*, held up only by Malek's performance. Man do I regret watching that movie. Phew, Queen wasn't whatever that was. As far as biopics go, and films too, it's mediocre either way.

Hope Sound of Metal is more like Tár than this or Rocketman. Curiously whether these music-movies ended up being good or bad, they had really great perfomances shoring it up.

Edited May 30, 2023 by TheLastWolf
*actually a rewatch since I fell asleep (sheer exhaustion mind you) half an hour in the first time when it released

[BigFatCoward]

Spiderverse, flash and transformers all being released absurdly close together doesn't seem wise for box office success  

[Deadlines? What Deadlines?]

3 hours ago, BigFatCoward said:

Spiderverse, flash and transformers all being released absurdly close together doesn't seem wise for box office success  

One will rise. One shall fall. One shall… never mind. 
 

‘Going to see Spiderverse on Sunday. 
-

‘finished White House Plumbers. I got to like this more and more as it went on. It’s interesting that it was a drama told from the POV of the plumbers themselves; especially E Howard Hunt. I learned a few things I wasn’t aware of, like the fate of certain people.

[Raja]

Well, I'm on my re-watch of Lost and have been enjoying it but as a Lindelof fan this was quite disheartening to read ( and please don't come at me with 'this is normal'  or this shit doesn't matter)

Quote

When someone on staff was adopting an Asian child, one person said to another writer that “no grandparent wants a slanty-eyed grandchild.”

When actor Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje’s picture was on the writers room table, someone was told to remove their nearby wallet “before he steals it.”

When Owusu-Breen and others were riding in a van on a trip, in answer to a question about the luggage, one writer—using a Yiddish word—said, “Let the schvartze take it.”

The only Asian American writer was called Korean, as in, “Korean, take the board.”

When a woman entered the writers room carrying a binder, two sources said, a male writer asked her what it was. She said it was the HR manual for the studio, and he responded, “Why don’t you take off your top and tell us about it?”

At least Lindelof seems to be reckoning with some of this stuff based on the article

Quote

After I read the word cloud to Lindelof, he was silent for about a minute. He finally answered, referring to his behavior in the present: “The way that I conduct myself and the way that I treat other humans who I am responsible for and a manager of is a by-product of all the mistakes that were made.… I have significantly evolved and grown, and it shouldn’t have had to come at the cost and the trauma of people that I hurt on Lost.

 

[Ran]

Finished White House Plumbers. It was enjoyable enough, and had some fun madcap energy at times (particularly the last episode, there's an absurd, darkly funny scene with Liddy in prison). I'll see if I can find Gasllit somewhere. Lena Headey as Howard Hunt's wife was pretty good, but Justin Theroux's absurd G. Gordon Liddy is a bit of a scene stealer.

Very surprised by how small Kiernan Shipka's role was on the show. Guess she had a hole in her schedule and the pay was good.

 

[Deadlines? What Deadlines?]

44 minutes ago, Ran said:

Finished White House Plumbers. It was enjoyable enough, and had some fun madcap energy at times (particularly the last episode, there's an absurd, darkly funny scene with Liddy in prison). I'll see if I can find Gasllit somewhere. Lena Headey as Howard Hunt's wife was pretty good, but Justin Theroux's absurd G. Gordon Liddy is a bit of a scene stealer.

Very surprised by how small Kiernan Shipka's role was on the show. Guess she had a hole in her schedule and the pay was good.

 

I was listening to the White House Plumbers podcast today. Apparently the “absurd, darkly funny” scene in prison was real. Liddy was a weird guy.

I assume you’re talking about the scene in the cafeteria.

[Ran]

Just now, Deadlines? What Deadlines? said:

I assume you’re talking about the scene in the cafeteria.

Yes.

Wikipedia says he claims to have sung the Horst Wessel song the day he arrived in prison, so the circumstances that the show gives -- thankful convicts applauding him for his free lawyer help, led by an observant Jewish inmate -- are made up. 

[Deadlines? What Deadlines?]

15 minutes ago, Ran said:

Yes.

Wikipedia says he claims to have sung the Horst Wessel song the day he arrived in prison, so the circumstances that the show gives -- thankful convicts applauding him for his free lawyer help, led by an observant Jewish inmate -- are made up. 

According to the shows producers, there’s a basis in fact for that stuff as well.

[RumHam]

I know it's not for everyone, but the new season of I Think You Should Leave is out. The computer game with the eggs 

[Kalbear]

Jesus

Quote

“In response, Damon told the writers room to double down on Tallahassee, and when asked why, he replied with a straight face that the only thing funnier than punching someone in the face for no reason is punching them harder when they ask why,”

I mean I don't mind shitting on Florida but that's a dick move. 

[Ran]

5 hours ago, Deadlines? What Deadlines? said:

According to the shows producers, there’s a basis in fact for that stuff as well.

I am sure that he did provide legal aid for inmates, as seen here. But the funny part is combining the two things.

[Veltigar]

I watched Rain Man over the weekend. Don't think I ever did before, but a lot of scenes rang a bell since this film has been parodied time and time again. Anyways, I thought it was great. Every performance lands and even by the very high standards of 80s Tom Cruise, this was a fun movie. 

Also finished the last two episodes of Succession and the last two episodes of Barry. My hot take is that Barry is more deserving of accolades than Succession. Both are great in their way, but there is just something about Barry that is very hard to replicate.

[Zorral]

I'd assumed White House Plumbers finished last week.  It felt like an ending to a quite pointless series about an insane person nazi and his feckless partner.  This is the problem with presenting them as Dumb and Dumber.

I did enjoy Hunt's wife as played by Headey.  Though, then, one wonders how in hell did this terrific woman marry such an idiot? 

[Cas Stark]

Long Plane Ride. 

Tar, loved it, and while Yeoh is fine, I think CB gave the better performance

speaking of MY, watched Everything/Everywhere, I didn't hate it as I expected to, it was fine, charming even,  but really, really silly, not sure I would have given JLC the Oscar either, but she was legit hilarious. I'll see it again on larger screen and maybe it will improve my opinion that it is good, and good that it's something original, but not great.

To Leslie, AR also better than Yeoh, movie was fine, nothing special, a by the books the arc of the alcoholic film, but AR was phenomical. 

Finally saw Parasite.  Um, really?  It was good, a well done satire, but a sweep of all the major awards?  I didn't see it.  At all.

[dog-days]

22 hours ago, Raja said:

Well, I'm on my re-watch of Lost and have been enjoying it but as a Lindelof fan this was quite disheartening to read ( and please don't come at me with 'this is normal'  or this shit doesn't matter)

It's very sad to read about in detail, but I don't think I'm surprised – even when I watched it in 2010, the abrupt writing out of black characters wasn't lost on me.  Plus other weird choices. 

The behaviour on all levels of the writers' room still shocks me though. 

[Ran]

Really interesting article as well, and I've had the pleasure of communicating with Mo Ryan in the past about GoT. But as someone who was a devoted Lost fan back in the day, there's a couple of things that seem like important details that she doesn't refer to at all and I just find it weird, because by not mentioning or exploring these things it feels like she's trying to carve out a very specific narrative.

When she talks of Michelle Rodriguez getting written out, she makes no reference to the fact that in that era Rodriguez had had ... well, quite a few run ins with the law. Her DUI simply capped off a number of other traffic violations on Hawaii, and not only put her in jail on Hawaii but also in California afterwards because she had violated probation for a prior DUI plea in that state. More notably, Cynthia Watros (Libby) also had a DUI right around that time (in fact, she was arrested within 15 minutes of Rodriguez)... and she was killed off in the very same episode. Why not mention Watros suffering the same fate on the show, in the same episode, after the same event having happened off set? It just seems weird to make it about a lack of "sympathy" for Rodriguez.

And then there's Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje. Ryan  just says he wanted to leave, which was "inconvenient" but "normal". But... by all accounts, Akinnuoye-Agbaje immediately hated Hawaii and wanted to be written out by the second episode, threatening to break contract... and when they told him they'd work on it but he had to show up and do the work he was contracted for until they figured it out, he allegedly attempted to force them to fire him by causing problems on set up to and including mistreating members of the crew.  Lindelof was pretty explicit about this aspect of things over the years, so this is not something that just turned up now, it was the gossip at the time. Terry O'Quinn seems to have to some degree corroborated things by indicating that Akinnuoye-Agbaje was not at all pleasant to work with.

If the above is true, the fact that his departure was much more describable as "acrimonious" rather than "inconvenient" might explain some of the ugly things Cuse is alleged to have said about writing out Eko (though it's worth noting that he bluntly denies the remarks). But again, Ryan makes no reference to this aspect of things. Does she consider it irrelevant? Does she not believe it? If she doesn't believe it, the obvious conclusion is that the claim came from Cuse and Lindelof to bad mouth him, and yet... she doesn't seem to ask the people she's interviewing about their own experiences to try and shoot down the rumor and potentially show Cuse-Lindelof were misbehaving even more thanis claimed. It's just not really addressed at all.

There's a lot of bad stuff in the piece, that doesn't speak well of how that writer's room and that show was run at the time. But there's no need to gild the lily by simplifying some of the issues and making them overtly one-sided.

Edited May 31, 2023 by Ran

[RumHam]

I'm putting this here because it doesn't warrant it's own thread, but I did watch Goodfella's fairly recently! Still great. I did not know at that time just how much material there was for a sequel:

https://medium.com/truly-adventurous/secrets-wives-4553ec1b871b

Good read, I kinda wish they hadn't mentioned Goodfellas in the sub heading. If they did make a movie it would be great to keep the identity of the man a secret and not give away the connection until Anders finds out. That would never happen though the way movies are marketed. And of course it's too late to properly make a sequel to Goodfellas. 

[RumHam]

Quote

Cynthia Watros (Libby) 

Her death was so weird too. Like there's no chance they had a plan to introduce this huge twist for her character, then kill her off and only breifly adress it four seasons later in a really anti-climactic way. 

Edited May 31, 2023 by RumHam

[dog-days]

Not related to Lost, but the Guardian did a good article on Akinnuoye-Agbaje's background. His Nigerian parents paid for a family to bring him up in Essex. 

[Ran]

10 minutes ago, RumHam said:

Her death was so weird too. Like there's no chance they had a plan to introduce this huge twist for her character, then kill her off and only breifly adress it four seasons later in a really anti-climactic way. 

As I recall, quite a few actors ended up getting traffic violations and even DUIs in Hawaii, suggesting that the cast was really into partying in paradise.