Watched, Watch, Watching: Pink Bombs

[Raja]

1 minute ago, Underfoot said:

 

Spoiler

I think he wanted to leave the show and that's why he was killed off abruptly. Tbh, I didn't finish the show as I think the quality dropped a decent amount.

There's a spin off called the good fight which I watched 4-5 episodes of which was actually quite good!

 

[Zorral]

1 minute ago, Underfoot said:

 

  Hide contents

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. 

 

Since I don't subscribe to that channel I've not seen The Good Fight, but I really liked The Good Wife.  The person to whom you refer above went to Billions.  If you like The Good Wife, you will like Billions a lot.  The writing is so sharp.  I know I'm a minority opinion but I thought from the beginning Billions was superior to Succession, particularly as it rolled with contemporary matters.  And Billions' s characters are interesting -- not better, more moral, more honest, o no -- just a lot more interesting in their selfishness and amorality.  A lot of them enjoy life a lot.  Nobody on Succession enjoys anything at all all except humiliating and degrading everyone. Think of Succession as Musk (a truly miserable person, and terrifying too -- for instance see the Ronan Farrow profile of him in the current New Yorker) and Billions as Jimmy Buffett.

[Mexal]

12 hours 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.

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

  Reveal hidden contents

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.

I love this movie. I used to watch it once a year back in the 2000s. The way I always think about it is one guy is a total badass until he's not and then an even bigger badass takes over. So good. Everything you said is spot on but for whatever reason, boiling the plot to that simple of a story makes it insanely enjoyable for me.

[SpaceChampion]

Decided at the last minute to go see Blue Beetle in theatres.   My theatre is about 3/4th full so a bit regretting the impulsivity.  This has been declared a flop already but maybe it has good word of mouth?

[Zorral]

3 hours ago, Mexal said:

Le Pacte Des Loups

Liked the film experience very much when it showed in the Paris Theater here way back in the day, by now. 

[dbunting]

13 hours ago, SpaceChampion said:

Decided at the last minute to go see Blue Beetle in theatres.   My theatre is about 3/4th full so a bit regretting the impulsivity.  This has been declared a flop already but maybe it has good word of mouth?

What is your word of mouth after seeing it?  I haven't seen it and only know of this character from the previews. From the previews I would say best case scenario it's as good as the original Ant Man but no better.

[SpaceChampion]

9 minutes ago, dbunting said:

What is your word of mouth after seeing it?  I haven't seen it and only know of this character from the previews. From the previews I would say best case scenario it's as good as the original Ant Man but no better.

It was a very young crowd watching this, and I could tell some things were going over their heads but they all seemed to like it.  Some of these kids weren't alive when Iron Man came out, so I imagine this might have had a similar impact on them.

I enjoyed it as well.  Actually I think it was a pretty good film.  I was thinking in the first couples of fights the action was better than I've seen in a while in comic book movies, just something about how it was choreographed impressed me, maybe because it was small scale instead of vast armies smashing into each other.   The final battle it was a bit generic -- but at that point I think they were more about feeding emotional arc and thematic story.

Thematically it was about the family dynamics of three different families, one strained and resentful, one found family twisted, cruel and manipulative, and then the loving, wholesome Reyes.  It was handled pretty well, getting the point across.  When's the last time a DC movie made good use of themes?  The Dark Knight?

Yeah, it's as good as the first Ant Man.  It's not any kind of heist film, though there are some minor heists in it for a couple of scenes.  The story arc (by which I mean the type and story function of the antagonists is diagnostic for the kind of character arc this is) makes it more like Shang Chi, my favorite of the Marvel Phase 4 movies.

The Blue Beetle AI kind of leads Jaime Reyes around by the nose, until it adapts to his preferences and avoids him being a bit too passive of a presence as a superhero.  Xolo is charming in the role.  I think they should have not have him constantly saying this was all a mistake and not worthy of all this, and kept his doubt to be more about the consequences being a superhero could have on his family.  It was nice to see the family not be damsels in distress and contribute to delivering an ass kicking.

[DireWolfSpirit]

Im very confident I will not be seeing Blue Beedle or Blue Wasp or whatever the hell that thing is, the trailer alone made me consider gouging out my eyeballs.

[Deadlines? What Deadlines?]

No Hard Feelings: 

Pretty good. It reminded me a lot of Me Myself and Irene. The pacing was a little off in some places but I definitely laughed out loud more than once. 

Oh, and eat my ass, Viggo Mortensen.

[Ran]

Watched Soderbergh's Kimi, a film with Covid very much informing the story. It's a thriller starring Zöe Kravitz who works a corporation that has an Alexa-like device known as Kimi. Her job is to listen through recordings where Kimi couldn't figure out the request, and basically program in fixes for the future. The character is basically a shut-in, and lives much of her life on her computer or staring out the window watching life pass by (except she does have a vaguely messy relationship with an attorney played by Byron Bowers). Until, of course, one day she hears something disturbing in the recordings, and reports to the company that she may have heard a crime being committed...

Major Rear Window vibes, but that's obviously deliberate.  A great use of dutch angles when Kimi finally leaves her apartment, to show how off-kilter and anxious she is about the experience.

Actually, the one thing I thought when it ended was... this is based on a  graphic novel, right? It has a lot of the hallmarks. Kravitz's charater with her blue-dyed hair would pop in a graphic novel, and the way the heavies who appear look and act, the way the action unfolds, etc., has a very indie graphic novel feel to it. But... no, not a graphic novel at all. Though I did find the screenwriter, David Koepp, mention in an interview that he was interested in writing one, so maybe this started out as one and became a screenplay instead? Anyways, yeah, fun little film. Kravitz is great in it.

[Veltigar]

I finally bit the bullet and rewatched Children of Men. This has been on my to-do list for years, mainly because I kept on reading on this very board just how much the film is loved. When I watched it the first time many years ago, it didn't really struck a chord with me. Its director is not someone whose work I feel connected to usually, and I barely remembered a thing about it. 

Having watched it again, I find I was half-wrong in my earlier assessment. The majority of the film still does nothing for me. I'm not convinced by the starting premise of the film (if a similar situation would occur in reality, I think nothing on earth would stop the whole world working together to solve the infertility crisis), nor am I specifically enamoured by any of the characters/performances. Furthermore, the technical achievements of the film (the tracking shots) feel a bit gimmicky to me.

I'd probably forget all about this film again, if it wasn't for one magical scene

Spoiler

When Theo retrieves Kee and the baby from the pockmarked appartement building, the film's world seems to grind to a halt. I felt incredibly affected when they walked out and everyone just stopped to stare at them. Despite the fact that there were still stray bullets killing people and that the soldiers seemed to be very committed to committing war crimes, all of them behaved as if they had seen the face of God himself when they noticed the baby.

Which, within the confines of the (admittedly in my opinion very implausible) world this film inhabits is absolutely the appropriate reaction. In that moment I felt transported and I thought the film was really good at conveying the sense of wonder and dread I would have had if I lived within the universe of the film. 

That scene makes the entire film worth a watch on an emotional level. It's also rather satisfying on an intellectual level when you realize later on that

Spoiler

Theo was actually right from the beginning. He recommended to go public and everyone disagreed with him. However, as can be seen in the film, the effect of the baby was immediate. If the Fishes had chosen to publicise the birth of the baby, they would have automatically created a spiritual revival amongst all the miserable sods who are fighting each other.

A remarkable (though again not very realistic) aspect of the film is that Theo never picks up a firearm in the film. Nor a knife or any other weapon with the exception of the block of rubble he uses to smash Syd's face (which I think was a mistake on the director's side, it would have been better if Theo had been entirely violence free).

Naturally, the religious imagery is very strong in the film, since our main protector is literally named "God of the lighthouses'" when translating his names from Greek to English. I think the film does a good job showing us (for example through his non-violence) that its Theo's ethics and morals that make him special (as acknowledged by the fact that all animals seem to love him), and why it is he that should be the protector of the baby and her mother.

 

On 8/22/2023 at 10:41 PM, Rippounet said:

Reduced for length.

Thanks for sharing, I'm curious how shocking I will find them.

23 hours ago, Mexal said:

I love this movie. I used to watch it once a year back in the 2000s. The way I always think about it is one guy is a total badass until he's not and then an even bigger badass takes over. So good. Everything you said is spot on but for whatever reason, boiling the plot to that simple of a story makes it insanely enjoyable for me.

It seems to me that we have a consensus here that the film shouldn't work but does somehow. Curious really.

Edited August 23, 2023 by Veltigar

[Relic]

On 8/13/2023 at 9:50 AM, Ran said:

Finished Soderbergh's limited series on MAX, Full Circle, headlined by Claire Danes and Timothy Olyphant, and incluing CCH Pounder, Dennis Quaid, Zazie Beetz, Jim Gaffigan, and more. It's a wheels-within-wheels crime thriller involving a kidnapping, a 20-year-old Guyanese property development scheme, insurance fraud, and a pony-tailed celebrity chef. It's shot in a run-and-gun style that's reminiscent of Soderbergh's past experiments filming on phones, but in fact he apparently used RED cameras on this. Unfortunately the script isn't very strong and some of the performances feel like Soderbergh decided to bring it in under budget by allowing no rehearals. It's very rare to see Danes or Olyphant appear in a bad scene, but... well, they appeared in several. I'm not sure I would recommend it, unless you're a Soderbergh completist. 

  Reveal hidden contents

Anyways, it ends not unlike Bresson's Au Hasard Balthazar, as it inevitably must. I can't say I have a heart of stone; it was very affecting and it sat with me a long time after finishing it.

 

I watched this mainly because your post reminded me it existed. Really enjoyed the first two episodes and then found it fell apart. Shame. 

[Zorral]

1 hour ago, Veltigar said:

I think nothing on earth would stop the whole world working together to solve the infertility crisis),

[Underfoot]

3 hours ago, Veltigar said:

I finally bit the bullet and rewatched Children of Men. This has been on my to-do list for years, mainly because I kept on reading on this very board just how much the film is loved. When I watched it the first time many years ago, it didn't really struck a chord with me. Its director is not someone whose work I feel connected to usually, and I barely remembered a thing about it. 

Having watched it again, I find I was half-wrong in my earlier assessment. The majority of the film still does nothing for me. I'm not convinced by the starting premise of the film (if a similar situation would occur in reality, I think nothing on earth would stop the whole world working together to solve the infertility crisis), nor am I specifically enamoured by any of the characters/performances. Furthermore, the technical achievements of the film (the tracking shots) feel a bit gimmicky to me.

 

  Reveal hidden contents

When Theo retrieves Kee and the baby from the pockmarked appartement building, the film's world seems to grind to a halt. I felt incredibly affected when they walked out and everyone just stopped to stare at them. Despite the fact that there were still stray bullets killing people and that the soldiers seemed to be very committed to committing war crimes, all of them behaved as if they had seen the face of God himself when they noticed the baby.

Which, within the confines of the (admittedly in my opinion very implausible) world this film inhabits is absolutely the appropriate reaction. In that moment I felt transported and I thought the film was really good at conveying the sense of wonder and dread I would have had if I lived within the universe of the film. 

 

Have you read the Long Price Quartet by Daniel Abraham? You might find the last book in particular interesting 

[Deadlines? What Deadlines?]

3 hours ago, Veltigar said:

I'd probably forget all about this film again, if it wasn't for one magical scene

That scene makes the entire film worth a watch on an emotional level.

I may have had something in my eye during that scene. By the time that one soldier crosses himself I was a screaming mound of blubber.

Also because that scene comes at the end of an amazing long take where Clive Owen successfully navigates a forest of flying razor blades to get to that building. Amazing film. 

[IlyaP]

41 minutes ago, Underfoot said:

Have you read the Long Price Quartet by Daniel Abraham? You might find the last book in particular interesting 

YES. 

Also, the final chapter has some of the best goddamn writing I've ever seen.

[Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II]

1 hour ago, Underfoot said:

Have you read the Long Price Quartet by Daniel Abraham? You might find the last book in particular interesting 

Haha we need that to happen to India/Pakistan and South/North Korea for world peace and reunification.

[Veltigar]

8 hours ago, Zorral said:

I know it's easy to be cynical and make the comparison with the climate crisis. If you pause to think about it however, you will realize that the climate crisis and the infertility crisis in Children of Men are incomparable:

1. The climate crisis has been building up to our current predicament for decades now, while the infertility crisis depicted in the film struck pretty much immediately everywhere. While both are crucial to our survival, only one of them is truly urgent measured in the span of a normal human life time (at least as long as we do not reach a tipping point and turn this place into hell). Human beings are biased towards the urgent, not towards the crucial.
2. The climate crisis suffers from a collective action problem and is far more complex to handle. Combatting it requires certain vested interests to give up power and wealth, while certain underprivileged groups have a good argument to make that they should be exempted from hard measures. With the infertility crisis as depicted in Children of Men, everyone is affected. Random schmuck 61, 62 and 63 in Rwanda, the US or China cannot conceive, but neither can the great potentates of the world do so.
   • Where the climate crisis has so far disproportionally affected the poor, the crisis in Children of Men will also destroy the plans of the rich. That's always a good way to get the ball rolling. Not to mention that the infertility crisis as depicted in the film is going to be much more difficult to deny

Long story short, the infertility crisis as depicted in the film would be more comparable to tackling Ozone depletion, which we did very effectively with the Montreal Protocol

What happened to the world's ozone hole? - BBC Future

6 hours ago, Underfoot said:

Have you read the Long Price Quartet by Daniel Abraham? You might find the last book in particular interesting 

No, I have not

6 hours ago, Deadlines? What Deadlines? said:

I may have had something in my eye during that scene. By the time that one soldier crosses himself I was a screaming mound of blubber.

Yeah, powerful stuff