Whatcha Watching?

[Nictarion]

1 hour ago, Deadlines? What Deadlines? said:

This particular story was one that I was not familiar with, but that whole Osage county oil rush scene was full of characters that don't exactly restore my faith in humanity. Further research indicates that the events in the film are largely true, though it leaves some ambiguity, especially regarding Leo's character. Some of these guys were pure fucking evil.

For years I wasn’t aware of either this story, or the Tulsa race massacre. Good on Marty (and HBO’s Watchmen) for getting them both out there for a large audience. Crazy that they both happened around the same time, in the same state. 

[Deadlines? What Deadlines?]

1 minute ago, Nictarion said:

For years I wasn’t aware of either this story, or the Tulsa race massacre. Good on Marty (and HBO’s Watchmen) for getting them both out there for a large audience. Crazy that they both happened around the same time, in the same state. 

I lived in Oklahoma for years and I never heard of it.

The Greenwood massacre was something I heard about before Watchmen, though it was long after I moved out of Oklahoma. I don't know the context but it might have been stumbling on a wikipedia article. The history on this is a bit fuzzy, but Greenwood wasn't the only example of this kind of thing, just the biggest. There was definitely something going on in the 1920's.

I was aware of some of the larger aspects of what went on in Osage county, like the federal government passing a law requiring the Osage peoples to have white conservators who managed all their money and totally ripped them off. The reign of terror specifically is new to me. 

[Mentat]

On 11/1/2023 at 12:11 PM, Ramsay B. said:

Anyone watch 30 Coins? Heard it was pretty decent and saw it was obviously on Max. 

I've watched 30 Coins. I saw the first episode quite a while ago because the showrunner (Alex de la Iglesia) is an ubernerd and has directed quite a few movies I've enjoyed, but I wasn't convinced. The first episode felt indulgently long and had this B movie that takes itself too seriously vibe, so I stopped watching. After two friends whom I trust insisted it was great and I just had to see it I picked it up again and finished it. Though I stand by my appraisal of the first episode, it does get better, and it feels like one of these series where the whole is more than the sum of its parts. By the end I was definitely hooked. I'm now watching the second season and enjoying it.

[Heartofice]

It feels unfair to compare Scream VI to something like Talk to me, but seeing as I watched them a day apart it's hard not to!

It's not just that Talk to me was clearly a much better movie, that it was actually trying and wasn't some bland sequel, as I watched it I kept thinking back to Scream VI and thinking 'Christ, is it that hard to just make characters likable or interesting'

Both movies have a set of school kids that we sort of follow, they both have a female lead and they are both doing horror things. But even if the horror in Talk to me wasn't great (actually it was great, really fucking disturbing at times) a lot of the quality is the performances of the cast, and that they came across as real humans with real relationships, emotions, conflicts and problems. In Scream VI the cast are a set of NPC characters almost built from a template, parroting boring lines and barely discernible from each other, probably because their only function is to die. 

And where the main female lead in Talk to me is this troubled wreck of a character, who's backstory pushes her actions affects her interactions with everyone, the female lead in Scream VI is again a boilerplate hot girl who we get told is all these things, she has mental issues or something but it's barely even touched on. She was just a checkbox of character traits that are declared but never acted on. 

Worth mentioning Sophie Wilde as Mia in Talk to me was absolutely excellent, a totally brilliant performance and she deserves to be more movies, and hopefully will now.

And while it doesn't make a ton of sense to put these two movies together and compare and contrast, just as a commentary on movies made with passion and ones which are just lazy templates, I thought it was quite interesting. Too many hollywood movies really do just seem like they pulled out a toolbox of premade elements and rearranged them to fit a new design and pumped that shit out for us to consume. 

[Slurktan]

9 hours ago, Deadlines? What Deadlines? said:

King Hale would have been in his 50's when the murders started. Deniro is 80. 

Yeah but c'mon, people aged differently back then. What with all the whiskey they brushed with and the ether the were sucking. Shit, smoking cigarettes was healthy for you back then. 

I'm not sure how I felt about:

  Hide contents

3.5 hours of cinema and they stop the movie so Jack white can tell us how the story ends? C'mon, Marty.

 

Hale was roughly 47 when they started, a year younger than Leo.

[Zorral]

18 hours ago, Nictarion said:

For years I wasn’t aware of either this story, or the Tulsa race massacre. Good on Marty (and HBO’s Watchmen) for getting them both out there for a large audience. Crazy that they both happened around the same time, in the same state. 

And there were more lynchings in North Dakota than other states.  The Tula race massacre wasn't an isolated instance of such a large event directed against Black communities by any means. Memphis, for one, had quite a few.

There was so much racial violence in those days, thanks to Woodrow Wilson hardening Jim Crow, among other things, including labor protests of being exploited.  Also violence directed against Catholics

[kissdbyfire]

On 11/2/2023 at 7:36 AM, Isis said:

I haven't watched the second and third Ginger Snaps movies. Prime are ruining my life with this, the swines.

I watched a film called Scapegoat on Netflix this week about a guy who bumps into someone who is a dead ringer for him and they swap roles. It's a quiet little period piece really (it's got Andrew Scott in it, for any fans of his). It's fine for a Sunday afternoon, mildly diverting and harmless. It's got a bit of a Poirot/Downton Abbey type vibe.

I meant to reply about The Burning Girls sooner but the thread got closed and then I forgot...

Watched 2 more eps. The cast is excellent but I have a feeling where it's all headed and... I'll just say I hope I'm wrong.

Did you watch any of it yet?

I have to check out Ginger Snaps, and have to say I like An American Werewolf in London very much. Griffin Dunne is excellent in it.

Also watched Collision over the weekend and thought that was good.

And today I was sort of watching something called London Kills - stay away, it's terrible - but got curious about something that I don't expect anyone to be able to answer but... there's this beautiful black DC called Billie Fitzgerald. Was that on purpose? Like a double homage? 

[Deadlines? What Deadlines?]

1 hour ago, Zorral said:

And there were more lynchings in North Dakota than other states.  The Tula race massacre wasn't an isolated instance of such a large event directed against Black communities by any means. Memphis, for one, had quite a few.

I think there was also something similar in detroit around that time. I wasn’t aware of North Dakota. 

[JGP]

Blue Eye Samurai is pretty good so far

[Zorral]

1 hour ago, Deadlines? What Deadlines? said:

I think there was also something similar in detroit around that time. I wasn’t aware of North Dakota. 

I wasn't aware of those lynching either, but the Fargo InForum did a story on them this week, "North Dakota's fraught history of lynching ranged from mocking ads to the front page of The New York Times," in their regular feature, "The Vault."

[Nictarion]

Started watching the AMC series The Terror. Never seen it before, and haven’t really heard anything about it, but it has Ciarán Hinds and Jared Harris. The first episode was intriguing. 

[3CityApache]

1 hour ago, Nictarion said:

Started watching the AMC series The Terror. 

It captures the book, which is brillant, quite accurately. 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

A Haunting in Venice is the third installment of Kenneth Branagh's take on Agatha Christie's books. I thought Murder on the Orient Express was pretty good, but the 1970's version is better. I was really excited for Death on the Nile, but it was pretty mediocre. AHiV is the same. The films have a few things in common, they have great casts, set designs and good cinematography. However, at least for me, the last two have fallen flat. Still, it's worth checking out if you like the genre and/or Christie's books and it's on Hulu right now. I wish more movies went to streaming as fast as this one did. 

[TheLastWolf]

 

[Heartofice]

18 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

A Haunting in Venice is the third installment of Kenneth Branagh's take on Agatha Christie's books. I thought Murder on the Orient Express was pretty good, but the 1970's version is better. I was really excited for Death on the Nile, but it was pretty mediocre. AHiV is the same. The films have a few things in common, they have great casts, set designs and good cinematography. However, at least for me, the last two have fallen flat. Still, it's worth checking out if you like the genre and/or Christie's books and it's on Hulu right now. I wish more movies went to streaming as fast as this one did. 

I guess there are enough people watching these movies that they keep making them? I’ve found the previous two to be pretty sub par. I thought Death on the Nile was egregiously bad in fact. 

[Veltigar]

Accidentally came across The Hate U Give, a film (sort of) about the Black Lives Matter movement I completely missed out on when it was released back in 2018. This film is about as subtle as a sledge hammer to the face, but I still thought it was incredibly powerful. I admire the fact that they swung for the fences with this one, given the severity of the topic.

The actors were all great, which was doubly impressive given how difficult some of these roles were. I thought the combination of the visual language (the difference between the scenes set in the high school and outside), performances and writing was tremendously moving. I was completely drawn into the film, to a point where

Spoiler

I could even accept the finale where the youngest child pulls out his dad's gun to threaten the drug dealer, at which point two gung-ho cops show up ready to blast the boy to kingdom come, prompting the protagonist to use herself as a human shield.

If you can sell even cynical old me on this type of high-level melodrama, you are a master in your craft.

I do hope this film will age terribly. Like, a test to see how much progress we have made as a society would be to watch this in 20 years from now with a young adult. If they find this film totally ridiculous, than we have grown as a society and should be proud of ourselves.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

4 hours ago, Heartofice said:

I guess there are enough people watching these movies that they keep making them? I’ve found the previous two to be pretty sub par. I thought Death on the Nile was egregiously bad in fact. 

Yeah, DotN was a letdown made worse by the fact the release date was pushed back two years or so because of Covid. I'm not sure if Branagh is going to get another chance to make another one, but I'm sure in 10-20 years we'll get a new take on MotOE. 

[Isis]

On 11/3/2023 at 11:30 PM, kissdbyfire said:

I meant to reply about The Burning Girls sooner but the thread got closed and then I forgot...

Watched 2 more eps. The cast is excellent but I have a feeling where it's all headed and... I'll just say I hope I'm wrong.

Did you watch any of it yet?

I have to check out Ginger Snaps, and have to say I like An American Werewolf in London very much. Griffin Dunne is excellent in it.

Also watched Collision over the weekend and thought that was good.

And today I was sort of watching something called London Kills - stay away, it's terrible - but got curious about something that I don't expect anyone to be able to answer but... there's this beautiful black DC called Billie Fitzgerald. Was that on purpose? Like a double homage? 

I've not watched The Burning Girls yet as we are going to try and finish S2 of From first before we start another series. But I am excited to start it.

Cannot recommend Ginger Snaps highly enough. 

At the weekend I watched Human Traffic for the first time. Bit of a weird one, really. It feels dated now and slow (the central premise being that the protagonist has what he calls 'sexual paranoia' AKA impotence). The classic 1990s trope of 'very average bloke gets with a very attractive woman' was in operation and it was just generally a bit cringe in how women were viewed/behaved overall.

There was a faint nostalgia there for me I guess. The 90's were my youth after all. I turned 13 in 1990 and I, too, went clubbing after a (sort of) McJob in the late 90's. Some Prime Danny Dyer action and I didn't know that Andrew Lincoln was in it either. 

The clubbing episode of Spaced does a MUCH better job of representing this time peroid/culture IMO, albeit without explicitly mentioning drug culture that much. 

[Iskaral Pust]

Finished Sex Education S4 which is hopefully the end of the series that feels a bit tired now, but did stay true to its mission and characters throughout.  Overall the show was very enjoyable even if the slightly wacky setting of a US-UK hybrid of Gen Z/Alpha, with 30+yr olds playing confused teenagers, was a specially created microcosm universe.  The proselytizing of therapy and acceptance (internal and external) for all had enough self-awareness in S3 and S4 to have antagonists co-opt and weaponize the same language of therapy.  S4 feels at times like there are too many heavy personal crises in progress across the expanding ensemble, especially since they’re all internally generated.  But worth watching to complete the show and see closure for the journeys of the main characters.

It was slightly disturbing in a show about prioritizing mental health that one prominent actress in the ensemble seems to be exhibiting the effects of an eating disorder while her character overlooks it entirely. 

[Teng Ai Hui]

Recently, I rewatched seasons 1 & 2 of Upload and am caught up with season 3.  Even though I miss the humor from season 1, it's still one of the best shows out there.  The world building is very interesting.  The acting and character interactions are fun to watch.  It's the only show that has love triangles that don't make groan.