Wa Wa Watching Nothing

[JGP]

Watched the first few episodes of The Changeling on Apple+

LaKeith Stanfield is amazing, as usual [so are the performances of other artists therein] but going in kinda blind to the show itself it's one part a fairy tale two parts creepy. 

Recommend. 

[HexMachina]

Ha, I think this new season of Futurama was worth it for Rage Against the Vaccine alone, I laughed out loud for most of the episode even though most of the jokes were the low hanging obvious ones.

Also started OMITB which I'm enjoying

[Werthead]

Finished The Witcher Season 3. Slow start, excellent big event mid-season, bit of a choppy ending, but it seems to match the novels pretty closely from what I remember. They're now heading into the most tedious part of the book storyline, so interesting to see how they handle that.

Halfway through One Piece, the Netflix show. Wholly unfamiliar with both the manga and anime. I'm really liking the worldbuilding, crazy energy and wild inventiveness of the show. If it has a problem, it's that it's a little too cotton candy at the moment, and the 50-60 minute episodes leave me feeling like I've eaten way too many sweets. Could probably have benefitted from a slimmed-down runtime.

I've been keen to catch up on Futurama, since I never watched past the original four-season run back in the day. I watched the TV movie season (5) and it was very patchy, but a few solid gags amongst the dross. Season 6 is absolute dogshit, though, finding it very hard to carry on.

On 9/10/2023 at 7:59 PM, BigFatCoward said:

Rob Mac is going to be all over our TV this next few weeks. Welcome to Wrexham S2 and Its always sunny 16 both drop this week. 

He puts the work in, but still gets 1% of the recognition of Ryan Reynolds, which is a joke that I suspect will continue into Wrexham S2 (which I'm surprised drops so soon, but good news).

[HexMachina]

18 minutes ago, Werthead said:

Finished The Witcher Season 3. Slow start, excellent big event mid-season, bit of a choppy ending, but it seems to match the novels pretty closely from what I remember. They're now heading into the most tedious part of the book storyline, so interesting to see how they handle that.

Halfway through One Piece, the Netflix show. Wholly unfamiliar with both the manga and anime. I'm really liking the worldbuilding, crazy energy and wild inventiveness of the show. If it has a problem, it's that it's a little too cotton candy at the moment, and the 50-60 minute episodes leave me feeling like I've eaten way too many sweets. Could probably have benefitted from a slimmed-down runtime.

I've been keen to catch up on Futurama, since I never watched past the original four-season run back in the day. I watched the TV movie season (5) and it was very patchy, but a few solid gags amongst the dross. Season 6 is absolute dogshit, though, finding it very hard to carry on.

He puts the work in, but still gets 1% of the recognition of Ryan Reynolds, which is a joke that I suspect will continue into Wrexham S2 (which I'm surprised drops so soon, but good news).

where are you watching Futurama? The season are labelled differently depending where you watch - season 5 on Disney+, for example, has Jurassic Bark which is one of the best known episodes of the show, I think.

All of the movies are lumped into Season 6 on Disney (there's 4) which is a weird way to place them.

[Werthead]

Disney+

Now I think about it, I think they are listing what seems like it should be Season 6 as Season 7. This is ringing a bell.

* One Google search later *

Ah, I vaguely remember this bullshit. Basically the production team produced the original run of Futurama in four seasons of almost-continuous production. Fox, because they are idiots, fucked around with the broadcast order, sometimes dropping episodes from late in one season to early in the next, or putting inexplicable breaks in random places but running the end of one season and the start of the next together. As a result, Fox ran the original four seasons in five distinct blocs with gaps between them, so people assumed there were five seasons.

This was all sorted out and eliminated when Futurama was released on DVD in the mid-2000s in the originally-intended production order, which confirmed there were four seasons. The DVDs sold gajillions of copies (warranting the show's comeback), which is why Futurama being four seasons and done rather than five got wedged into a lot of people's brains. The four DVD movies were then seen as their own thing.

When Comedy Central revived the show, they inexplicably used the "wrong" Fox transmission order, going back to five seasons, and then turned the four DVD movies into its own 16-episode sixth season. The new Seasons 7 and 8 were then broken into two seasons apiece.

The net result of this mayhem is that the six broadcast seasons and four DVD movies have been broken down into ten broadcast seasons on streaming, which is confusing. Unfortunately it seems to have bedded in and become accepted, with even the OG production team describing the new, current season as Season 11 when it should really be Season 7 (!) or 8 if you count the DVD movies as their own season.

Fox Television, always making things more bullshit than they really ever need to be.

[Veltigar]

I watched a Finnish film called Sisu last night. Had been waiting for this for quite a while. I read it was a rather straight-up John Wick knock-off, set during the Lapland War of 1944, and that the violence committed against the Nazi villains was comically over the top.

Comedy however, was scarcely to be seen. Not because this turned out to be some amazing drama, but because it was a shockingly bad film. The film mercifully lasted only 90 minutes, but it sure did feel much longer than that.

The dialogue was absolutely cringeworthy, as if the English text was written by a particularly annoying 10-year old high on Red Bull. The violence was uninspired and there were just so many unforced errors in this film that I just gave up after a while.

Definitely do not recommend this one. Don't go see it. Finland has proven in the past that it can do better than this.

[Heartofice]

43 minutes ago, Veltigar said:

I watched a Finnish film called Sisu last night. Had been waiting for this for quite a while. I read it was a rather straight-up John Wick knock-off, set during the Lapland War of 1944, and that the violence committed against the Nazi villains was comically over the top.

Comedy however, was scarcely to be seen. Not because this turned out to be some amazing drama, but because it was a shockingly bad film. The film mercifully lasted only 90 minutes, but it sure did feel much longer than that.

The dialogue was absolutely cringeworthy, as if the English text was written by a particularly annoying 10-year old high on Red Bull. The violence was uninspired and there were just so many unforced errors in this film that I just gave up after a while.

Definitely do not recommend this one. Don't go see it. Finland has proven in the past that it can do better than this.

Wow, this movie has been talked up as the underground hit of the year, I was seriously looking forward to it. Basically John Wick with Nazis. 

[Veltigar]

25 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

Wow, this movie has been talked up as the underground hit of the year, I was seriously looking forward to it. Basically John Wick with Nazis. 

You and me both buddy. Have you seen the John Wick knock-off Nobody with Bob Odenkirk? I didn't like that one either, but it was better than Sisu. Perhaps that might help you adjust your hype levels a little.

Or another one, this film reminds me more of the first Wonder Woman film than of John Wick.

[Heartofice]

11 minutes ago, Veltigar said:

You and me both buddy. Have you seen the John Wick knock-off Nobody with Bob Odenkirk? I didn't like that one either, but it was better than Sisu. Perhaps that might help you adjust your hype levels a little.

Or another one, this film reminds me more of the first Wonder Woman film than of John Wick.

Yeah I was also very much looking forward to Nobody as well. However I came out deeply disappointed by that movie. It absolutely is a shameless rip-off of John Wick, but outside of Bob Odenkirk is just inferior on every level. The last third of the movie was the worst part as far as I recall and the whole thing felt like a massive waste of time. 

I'd be very sad is Sisu left me with the same feeling.

[Werthead]

1 hour ago, Veltigar said:

I watched a Finnish film called Sisu last night. Had been waiting for this for quite a while. I read it was a rather straight-up John Wick knock-off, set during the Lapland War of 1944, and that the violence committed against the Nazi villains was comically over the top.

I did ponder if this was going to turn out to be more of a meme than an actual film, and this seems to be the case. At least something like Kung Fury was short enough that the joke did not outstay its welcome.

I must admit to a slight weakness for the manifestly terrible, Finnish Star Trek vs. Babylon 5 fanfiction film (Star Wreck: In the Pirkinning), simply because the CGI quality is amazing for an early 2000s film made on home PCs, comparable to the actual CG used in B5, and watching ships from both universe kicking the shit out of each other was very entertaining.

[Veltigar]

26 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

Yeah I was also very much looking forward to Nobody as well. However I came out deeply disappointed by that movie. It absolutely is a shameless rip-off of John Wick, but outside of Bob Odenkirk is just inferior on every level. The last third of the movie was the worst part as far as I recall and the whole thing felt like a massive waste of time. 

I'd be very sad is Sisu left me with the same feeling.

Well, Sisu rips off Wonder Woman and Tarantino's aesthetic more so than John Wick. That might soften the blow a bit, but I'd still place my money on you not liking it.

9 minutes ago, Werthead said:

I did ponder if this was going to turn out to be more of a meme than an actual film, and this seems to be the case. At least something like Kung Fury was short enough that the joke did not outstay its welcome.

 

Yeah, the opening is the only thing that is really enjoyable, so perhaps if it was a short film that ended with the first fight it would be better.

[Zorral]

Question for those watching: is Appletv's The Changeling this generation's Rosemary's Baby?

[JGP]

28 minutes ago, Zorral said:

Question for those watching: is Appletv's The Changeling this generation's Rosemary's Baby?

Never seen Rosemary's baby, so couldn't say. It's based on a fantasy/horror book apparently, but I've been steering wide of any possible spoilers. 

Have you seen all the released episodes, Z?

[Zorral]

19 minutes ago, JGP said:

Have you seen all the released episodes,

Haven't seen any of them.  Read the book because I had to.  I hated it.

[JGP]

Oh. Well... no spoilers! :p

[Deadlines? What Deadlines?]

9 hours ago, Veltigar said:

Well, Sisu rips off Wonder Woman and Tarantino's aesthetic...

[polishgenius]

I only mildly like Nobody and didn't think it was memorable, but I've still never really understood why everyone decided it's just a John Wick ripoff. It's not particularly similar in tone or style, nor in plot beyond 'badass was retired, returns to action'. It's not even a revenge plot, at least not on Nobody's part. It just happened to be the first really notable retired badass movie of that type to come out after John Wick. Might as well say it ripped off A History of Violence. 

 

 

It doesn't even lean into the glowing strong-coloured lighting that is a hallmark of most John-Wick-influenced movies these days.

Edited September 12, 2023 by polishgenius

[Zorral]

The New Yorker Magazine has online a piece on Warrior; it covers the Bruce Lee history behind the series, as well as the martial sequences.

Bruce Lee’s “Warrior,” and the Politics of Kung Fu
The Max series makes a radical argument for what constitutes American history.

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/bruce-lees-warrior-and-the-politics-of-kung-fu

Quote

 

.... In “Warrior,” martial arts is more than just a health regimen. (Bruce Lee himself, understanding the fantastical nature of action stories, said in 1971 that his show would have to be set in the West: “How else can you justify all this punching and kicking and violence?”) Ah Sahm, in his battles with the Long Zii, often fights alongside the Hop Wei prince, played by Jason Tobin, another mixed-race Chinese British actor, who was born in Hong Kong. Tobin’s character—which is not unlike his character in “Better Luck Tomorrow”—might be best described as “stabby.” He is a stereotype of a kind of pent-up Chinese American aggression. Ah Sahm’s fighting is more thoughtful, elegant, and deliberate. He is a master of Wing Chun, but, as the series goes on, he transitions to Jeet Kune Do, a more efficient and flexible form of mixed martial arts, invented by Lee. (It has been said that the style is the forerunner to the mixed martial arts that is used by today’s U.F.C. fighters.) His movements, a cadence of pulses through his upper torso, with bounces in his shoulders matched by misdirection from his arms and feet, can be reminiscent of a b-boy toprock, a callback to an origin of hip-hop dance.

In both fighting and dance, the body is the main vehicle of expression—ideas, emotions, and history are sublimated into movements that can be explosively deliberate or tranquil. Tropper has talked about how “Warrior” relies on its battle scenes for character development. “I get very into the weeds on the fights, as expressions of the characters and as expressions of what the story is,” he said, in an interview. “Every fight has to tell a story. It can’t just be two guys duking it out.”

“Warrior” likes to switch between elevating action—using it as a way to express key themes—and explicitly nodding to the pulpy seduction of kung fu. It’s a continuation of Bruce Lee’s work: the actor was known for balancing heady ideas while still entertaining audiences with his sheer physicality. But it’s a delicate balance, and, as the show progresses, it becomes harder for the characters to slip their warrior personas on and off. In the third season, a woman encounters Ah Sahm and sees him not as he sees himself—a benevolent outcast finding his path—but as the Hop Wei gangster he publicly presents as. He is practicing shirtless with nunchucks (another Bruce Lee tableau), and the woman sarcastically plays down his prowess. At the end of the scene, she leaves, blushing. Ah Sahm, a little confused, continues training. ♦

 

 

[Zorral]

Ha!

One Piece’ Solidifies Its Dominance With Another Week Atop Netflix TV Charts

https://deadline.com/2023/09/one-piece-ratings-netflix-global-campaign-success-1235544409/

Quote

.... The audience for Netflix’s One Piece ballooned during the series’ first full week on the service, tallying 19.3M views from September 4 to September 10 and easily making it to the top of Netflix’s English-language TV list for the week. The audience is up nearly a million views from last week, when the adaptation of Eiichiro Oda’s manga accumulated 18.5M views in its premiere weekend. ....

 

[Tywin et al.]

I guess this is as good of place to put this as anywhere else. Quick statistical breakdown coving age gaps in Hollywood films: