Watched, Watch, Watching: Pink Bombs

[Deadlines? What Deadlines?]

2 hours ago, Rippounet said:

I agree with you but still love season 4, because it's an amazing almost entirely self-contained sci-fi story.

I love how the individual seasons are self contained, but effectively form an episode in a trilogy, and, if they do more seasons, a trilogy of trilogies. Incredibly well done.

Some casting trivia:

Arjun Avasarala (the husband) was recast in later seasons with Michael Benyaer, who did the voice of Bob on Reboot. 

Cara Gee, who plays Camina Drummer is Canadian. In your face, rest of the world. 

[Underfoot]

I've been watching The Good Wife  for the first time (for some reason) and the biggest plot hole throughout whole thing is the supposition anyone in the world cares THAT much about a state's attorney (or about lawyers in general. or about state attorney's wives). I don't even know what states attorneys really do and I've watched 5 seasons.

Otherwise, surprisingly entertaining. What's interesting for me is how it straddles the time period before and after the rise of super-smart phones and social media and streaming. It ran throughout the time I was in high school through college graduation and it's kind of vertigo inducing to watch so quickly the evolution of technology/society during that time.

 

[TheLastWolf]

Guys is Fargo, the show, worth it?

ASAP

[3CityApache]

2 hours ago, TheLastWolf said:

Guys is Fargo, the show, worth it?

ASAP

Yes. Though every season is a self-contained story, some are better than others.

[Argonath Diver]

So The Advertising and Netflix's relentless algorithm convinced me to try out the Gal Gadot spy thing that I've already forgotten the name of despite just trying to watch. Oh, that's it, Heart of Stone. 25 years ago, my summer job as a teen was at a kick-ass Blockbuster Video (as an aside, we all loved it there and had a blast). This film reminded me of some random-ass VHS in the Action section with some random 90s female action star awkwardly holding a pistol as the cover slip. I made it about 45 minutes in before realizing a mix of complete apathy and utter contempt was not making for a fun time watching a movie.

I'm glad this is the last month using this service for likely a long time. Thoroughly unimpressed with their unique content business model, and their backlog of fun old movies runneth dry.

[Heartofice]

1 hour ago, Argonath Diver said:

So The Advertising and Netflix's relentless algorithm convinced me to try out the Gal Gadot spy thing that I've already forgotten the name of despite just trying to watch. Oh, that's it, Heart of Stone. 25 years ago, my summer job as a teen was at a kick-ass Blockbuster Video (as an aside, we all loved it there and had a blast). This film reminded me of some random-ass VHS in the Action section with some random 90s female action star awkwardly holding a pistol as the cover slip. I made it about 45 minutes in before realizing a mix of complete apathy and utter contempt was not making for a fun time watching a movie.

I'm glad this is the last month using this service for likely a long time. Thoroughly unimpressed with their unique content business model, and their backlog of fun old movies runneth dry.

It is ironic that Netflix, a service that used to send DVDs straight to your door, is now cornering the 'Straight to DVD' market in terms of the type of movies it makes.

[Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II]

Finished Captain Fall on Netflix recently, best adult animated show out this year ! Netflix gets most of their animation shows right.

[Veltigar]

I rewatched the batshit crazy Le Pacte Des Loups (English title The Brotherhood of the Wolf). It's a French movie from 2001 and it really, really wants you to be able to identify it as a film from the late nineties, early nillies period. The film contains every single marker in the book for that time period of film making.

There is some truly atrocious CGI, the camerawork is choppy and I would bet it was shot on an early digital camera which gives every image in the film a weird, over lighted and flat feel. The fight scenes are ridiculous, containing lots of unnecessary spinning, wildly impractical weapon designs, villains politely queuing to get their ass kicked, people forgetting that firearms are a thing, and sound effects worthy of Buster Keaton. It has a role for Monica Belluci. Its ideas on gender and race are questionable at best (unexplained Indian magic for example). Most ridiculous of all is the plot, which is so bonkers that I'll limit myself to just two errors that are especially egregious

Spoiler

1. It's a fine idea making a conspiracy driven plot. That was all the rage in the early 2000s, but I don't understand why they didn't feel the need to set it up properly here. The big bad of the film is hardly even mentioned before it is revealed that the priest Sardis is the leader of some weird demonic cult. As a result of that, his eventual demise falls flat because I didn't give a shit about him.

2. The Indian Mani (played by the villain from John Wick 3, which was a cool detail once I noticed it) gets fridged in the most spectacular way. For no discernible reason he follows the Beast on his own after the crew had unsuccessfully tried to ambush it and then Leroy Jenkins' his way into an early grave by barging in there and being surprised by a bunch of singularly unstealthy minions who then start queuing to receive a beating from him before he is distracted by a femme fatal and then shot from behind with a silver bullet by the villain which is essential to identify the secret villain's true identity.

I had forgotten about this whole plot element and it pretty much beggars belief how singularly clumsy and incompetent this was handled.

Despite the slapdash amateurism of the film, I did really enjoy myself. I'm not sure whether it's because I saw this film first at an impressionable age or because I just have a strange appreciation for films from this time period (I remember Beowulf starring Christopher Lambert very fondly as well) or because of some other mystical voodoo (I think Vincent Cassel is a great actor so his role might bias me a bit), but I enjoyed it more than the film itself merits on quality grounds.

[Ran]

What I mostly remember about Le Pacte Des Loups is some of the costume design -- Émilie Dequenne's gorgeous red hunting outfit, particularly, but Monica Belluci of course was pretty gorgeously dressed. It is a rather ridiculous film, but it's not trying to be too deep, I think -- it's a post-Matrix popcorn historical action-thriller.

I agree on Cassel. A real movie star, his charisma just drips off the screen.

[Heartofice]

12 minutes ago, Veltigar said:

I rewatched the batshit crazy Le Pacte Des Loups (English title The Brotherhood of the Wolf). It's a French movie from 2001 and it really, really wants you to be able to identify it as a film from the late nineties, early nillies period. The film contains every single marker in the book for that time period of film making.

I don't remember much about the movie itself, but I do remember the absolute hype around it in film nerd circles at the time. It was bigged up as this underground hit that you had to watch.. a bit like Donnie Darko. I remember mildly enjoying it but hardly being blown away. I think these 'underground' movies were all the rave at the time, anything not in English was raved about and everyone was looking for the next thing.

It's probably decent, but it really reminds me of the culture of the time.

[Veltigar]

I watched the extended cut of The Patriot, starring Mel Gibson. I don't think the extended cut added much, but it also did not actively detract from the film or dilute the narrative drive. On that front, I would therefore count it as a success. As to the film as a whole, it's actually better than I remembered and that despite the fact that my expectations for it were quite high.

I think, with perhaps the addition of the fact that the tactics in the final battle didn't seem to make much sense to me, the one glaring mistake the film makers made is its treatment of slavery. By today's standard, the film feels rather cowardly for avoiding to talk about it. IMDB has the following neat bit of trivia about the avoidance of any mention of slavery and I think Mel Gibson's statement at the end would probably have made for an even better film:

Quote

During pre-production, the producers debated on whether Benjamin Martin would own slaves, ultimately deciding not to make him a slave owner. This decision received criticism from Spike Lee, who in a letter to The Hollywood Reporter accused the film's portrayal of slavery as being "a complete whitewashing of history". Lee wrote that after he and his wife went to see the film, "we both came out of the theater fuming. For three hours The Patriot (2000) dodged around, skirted about, or completely ignored slavery." Mel Gibson himself remarked: "I think I would have made him a slave holder. Not to seems kind of a cop-out."

Everything else in the film is great though. The cast is absolutely stacked with some of the best actors working at that time. This must have been one of Heath Ledger's first roles in the US and he has movie star written all over him in this film. It's really crazy how effortlessly he was able to hold his own against Mel Gibson. Isaacs is wonderful as the despicable Tavington and really deserves to be mentioned as one of the great villains of American cinema. In fact, one of the great things about The Patriot is the impact it had on Avatar: The Last Airbender. Again, citing a fact from IMDB below:

Quote

The producers of the critically acclaimed animated series [Avatar: The Last Airbender (2005)] used Tavington as inspiration for the villainous character admiral Zhao. Casting director Maryanne Dacey was asked to find someone like Jason Isaacs to voice the part and Dacey promptly asked Isaacs if he was interested. Isaacs accepted the part.

I also love the score. It's incredibly stirring and I felt the desire to rush into the guns after Mel's character, so that's saying something. The costuming struck me as authentic and was apparently done in cooperation with the Smithsonian, so I think it was probably highly authentic. The battle scenes are thrilling, and while the tactics are sometimes a bit wonky (but hey, that's Hollywood for you), at least Emmerich delivers his violence in sufficiently thrilling instances to obfuscate the absence of sound tactical decisions.

The final thing I really admire about the film is that it doesn't mind going to dark places. I cannot think of many films in recent memory where

Spoiler

The main character loses two children and a daughter-in-law in such harrowing circumstances. Not to mention the fact that Benjamin Martin himself is depicted as a war criminal  in his own right (even by the standards of his own time, which were far more lenient than ours).

That's ballsy stuff for a movie with a budget this big and I frankly cannot think of any recent film that comes close. Perhaps Oppenheimer, but the framing is sufficiently different to make the two incomparable. 

Anyways, long story short, this is by far the best film Emmerich has ever done. It's a great period action piece and I wish we had more films like it. Both in terms of ambition, mature storytelling and moral ambivalence, as well as the time period. For some reason there are only a limited number of films that set their stories during this time but both this and The Last of the Mohicans break a lance for 18th Century North-America to be used on screen a lot more than it is used today.

 

3 hours ago, Ran said:

What I mostly remember about Le Pacte Des Loups is some of the costume design -- Émilie Dequenne's gorgeous red hunting outfit, particularly, but Monica Belluci of course was pretty gorgeously dressed. It is a rather ridiculous film, but it's not trying to be too deep, I think -- it's a post-Matrix popcorn historical action-thriller.

I agree on Cassel. A real movie star, his charisma just drips off the screen.

The great thing about Cassel (perhaps because he's French), is also the range of roles he has taken on over the years. He's played leads, villains, comic relief side characters, etc. Very interesting and I wish more big names would emulate him on that front.

And you are right about that hunting outfit. Very beautifully done, although a lot of it struck me as anachronistic for the period (especially Monica Belluci's outfits). Very much like the Matrix indeed.

3 hours ago, Heartofice said:

I don't remember much about the movie itself, but I do remember the absolute hype around it in film nerd circles at the time. It was bigged up as this underground hit that you had to watch.. a bit like Donnie Darko. I remember mildly enjoying it but hardly being blown away. I think these 'underground' movies were all the rave at the time, anything not in English was raved about and everyone was looking for the next thing.

It's probably decent, but it really reminds me of the culture of the time.

That's the surprising thing for me. It's "objectively" quite shitty, but I still admire the chutzpah of it all enough to have really enjoyed it.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

6 hours ago, Argonath Diver said:

So The Advertising and Netflix's relentless algorithm convinced me to try out the Gal Gadot spy thing that I've already forgotten the name of despite just trying to watch. Oh, that's it, Heart of Stone. 25 years ago, my summer job as a teen was at a kick-ass Blockbuster Video (as an aside, we all loved it there and had a blast). This film reminded me of some random-ass VHS in the Action section with some random 90s female action star awkwardly holding a pistol as the cover slip. I made it about 45 minutes in before realizing a mix of complete apathy and utter contempt was not making for a fun time watching a movie.

I'm glad this is the last month using this service for likely a long time. Thoroughly unimpressed with their unique content business model, and their backlog of fun old movies runneth dry.

The movie is not worth watching. I fell asleep around the point you checked out because it was so uninteresting and then fell asleep again after trying to start from there maybe 30 more minutes into it. 

I'm considering cutting everything out besides Prime and Max and even they have not been producing a lot of great new content. Feels like most of them are flooding the zone with garbage, but if you look closely there are some gems. However it's not worth it anymore to have five or so active at a time.

It will be curious to see how much new content these sites have in the can if the strikes last for awhile. 

[Heartofice]

18 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

It will be curious to see how much new content these sites have in the can if the strikes last for awhile. 

This might be a good opportunity to watch older movies and shows that I have missed out on. There has been such a dump of content these last few years its anxiety inducing thinking of everything I've missed out on. 

If it wasn't for the kids I would have dumped Netflix a long time ago, there is almost nothing worth watching on there. 

[Slurktan]

4 hours ago, Veltigar said:

 

  Hide contents

2. The Indian Mani (played by the villain from John Wick 3, which was a cool detail once I noticed it) gets fridged in the most spectacular way.

 

That is the chairman from Iron Chef you are talking about

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

2 hours ago, Heartofice said:

This might be a good opportunity to watch older movies and shows that I have missed out on. There has been such a dump of content these last few years its anxiety inducing thinking of everything I've missed out on. 

If it wasn't for the kids I would have dumped Netflix a long time ago, there is almost nothing worth watching on there. 

I spent the pandemic watching older movies on various Top 100 lists that I hadn't seen or couldn't remember. It was a joy.

Every now and then you find something new on a streaming service that's a treat, and there are some good movies/shows/miniseries you get access to, but overall it feels like what they do best when making their own content is bad B movies that sometimes are unintentionally hilarious. 

[Zorral]

Kurt Anderson and Stephen Soderbergh teamed up.

https://commandzseries.com/

'Command Z' review: Steven Soderbergh's surprise sci-fi tries to un-doom Earth
Michael Cera as a Big Tech CEO AI using a time machine to save the world? Let's go.

https://mashable.com/article/steven-soderbergh-command-z-review

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Command_Z

[RhaenysBee]

I’m watching Bones (still), and I don’t understand why 

Spoiler

this bloody show hates Hodgins so much. I’m so pissed about this. Well originally I was absolutely pissed when Hodgins lost his fortune in an insanely idiotic way during the Pelant plot and it was never recovered after Pelant died. And now, after the show made Hodgins self - made in an off camera storyline (so ridiculous) - I could go on and on about how much I dislike this plot event as well-, Hodgins is about to have another kid and bamm, sorry he’s paralyzed. For crying out loud Booth was shot every couple seasons without  repercussions. Wendell healed from the cancer that was introduced as an illness with an 10% survival rate. Aubrey was at an arrest a day after he was in surgery to get shrapnel out of him. But Hodgins was in an explosion so he’s paralyzed. Are you serious? Why couldn’t Hodgins get some less permanent or less disabling consequences?
 

on a similar note, It’s just so unfair and disheartening that the show gets rid of characters in depressing ways. They get killed (Sweets, the British intern) or they are locked up (Zach), if they do quit they end up drifting back (Daisy, Vaziri) because their career plans outside the Jeffersonian fall through (even though they are supposed to be world class experts or at least trained by one). Nobody quits and rides off into the sunset and lives happily ever after, because neither fulfillment and happiness nor success and financial advancement exist beyond the Jeffersonian. All the while it’s coming up Milhouse  for Brennan who’s happily married, a perfect mother, a best selling author with a huge fortune and somehow still the world’s best forensic anthropologist because days are 36 hours long in her parallel universe. Nobody can be as happy, as healthy, as wealthy, as successful or as fulfilled as Brennan. 

I really like the whodunnit aspect of this show and I really like Booth and I really like that they try to discuss some social/political/anthropological topic in every episode, and I love that when Bones was written it was still allowed to show both sides of the coin and represent opposite perspectives on the subjects as equal opinions, that’s very refreshing. But man, I have so many issues with the larger story. 

I also watched The Help on Sunday. It was heartwarmingly lovable. It was slightly oddly paced and the tension didn’t always work out as they intended, some character stories were lacking, but the (main cast) acting was superb  and the effort for nuance was there. Octavia Spencer herself is enough reason to watch this movie. She did have more opportunity to showcase her full acting prowess in the mini series about CJ Walker’s life, but she brought her usual warmth and force of nature to this movie as well. It wasn’t anything mind blowing, but it’s a sweet movie for a chill weekend. I wouldn’t rewatch it, but I do recommend it above mentioned occasions. In fact,  I might rewatch it with my mum, just because I know she would enjoy this movie for its atmosphere and being an Octavia Spencer fan.

Edited August 22, 2023 by RhaenysBee

[Rippounet]

6 hours ago, Veltigar said:

The great thing about Cassel (perhaps because he's French), is also the range of roles he has taken on over the years. He's played leads, villains, comic relief side characters, etc. Very interesting and I wish more big names would emulate him on that front.

If you guys like Cassel so much, you should check some of his early works on youtube.

"La barbichette"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BL6WfHJ32Kc

This is an old song/game played in France. The song goes "I hold you, you hold me, by the beard/chin, the first of us to laugh, will be slapped." Not sure you can get subtitles for this one, but it should be explicit enough.

"Le chat de la grand-mère d'Abdel Krim" (Abdel Krim's grandmother's cat). My personal favorite - you definitely need subtitles for this one though. Actual story starts around 3'50.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGhOOFDERAE

But if you want to truly go down the rabbit hole, Cassel starred in a movie called "Sheitan" (Satan) which is absolutely bonkers. Here is one of the songs from it to give you a taste of the stuff - be warned, this is some crazy dark stuff, the title of the song means "I immolate you, gently":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-couaDiP4E
Though I've always liked the slower version myself, it's actual music - but with the same batshit crazy lyrics:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K67bYzxTjVc
Talking of which, the lyrics are here (*trigger warning for VERY violent/hateful lyrics, rape, racism, homophobia, sexism*)
[minor mistake though: it shouldn't be "tournament" but "gang rape"]:
https://lyricstranslate.com/en/gentiment-je-timmole-gently-i-immolate-you.html

Believe it or not, this is humor - crazy, dark-as-fuck humor. If you've grown in the French suburbs, every single one of these videos is totally hilarious, and Cassel was behind all of them.
No need to thank me. *evil laughter*
 

[Raja]

18 hours ago, Underfoot said:

I've been watching The Good Wife  for the first time (for some reason) and the biggest plot hole throughout whole thing is the supposition anyone in the world cares THAT much about a state's attorney (or about lawyers in general. or about state attorney's wives). I don't even know what states attorneys really do and I've watched 5 seasons.

Otherwise, surprisingly entertaining. What's interesting for me is how it straddles the time period before and after the rise of super-smart phones and social media and streaming. It ran throughout the time I was in high school through college graduation and it's kind of vertigo inducing to watch so quickly the evolution of technology/society during that time.

 

It can be uneven, but it's a pretty good show. I prefer it to something like Suits which is..not good.

[Underfoot]

7 minutes ago, Raja said:

It can be uneven, but it's a pretty good show. I prefer it to something like Suits which is..not good.

Yeah I'm definitely enjoying it. I am on a medical leave and have to do 1-2 hours exercises/day and I have it on during those, so I'm zooming through without much time to reflect, but I can see why it was so popular during when it aired and why there's a spinoff.

Spoiler

I was shocked by the Will killoff mid-season. Absolutely did not expect that. Ballsy. But the will they/won't they was getting tiresome so it makes sense. 

Haven't seen Suits so can't compare