Whatcha Watching?

[williamjm]

I watched Dream Scenario, which I thought was a good black comedy. By his usual standards Nicolas Cage is fairly restrained for most of the film playing a character whose natural inclination is to fade in the background and not take any action, although as the dreams he is appearing become more nightmarish this does change. It is an unusual premise and I like that they didn't really try to explain why Cage's character is appearing in people's dreams.

I also watched The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar on Netflix. I remember reading the story as part of one of Dahl's collections several times as a child but I had mostly forgotten the plot until I watched this when it did start to come back to me. I don't think there would have been enough material here for a film, but I think it works well as a 40 minute long short and I think it does suit Wes Anderson's style. I thought Ralph Fiennes was good as Roald Dahl and Cumberbatch as the title character.

[Nictarion]

I enjoyed Fincher’s The Killer. Not sure how memorable it will be long term, but it was pretty good overall. It has one of the better fight scenes I’ve seen in a while. 

Have to say though, I would gladly trade both this and Mank for another season of Mindhunter.

[Kalbear]

So far (through ep 3) Blue Eye Samurai is as awesome as advertised, with great stylized slow fight scenes, beautiful imagery and a surprisingly hilarious streak.

[Isis]

I watched Trainwreck Woodstock 99 - I feel like this passed me by at the time? I guess there was no real social media back then. I feel soiled after watching this. A lot of people giving themselves a pass for not being able to control something which they made absolutely no attempt to control. 

[baxus]

5 hours ago, Kalbear said:

So far (through ep 3) Blue Eye Samurai is as awesome as advertised, with great stylized slow fight scenes, beautiful imagery and a surprisingly hilarious streak.

I finished it 2-3 days ago and quite liked it. Can't wait for season 2.

[Ran]

18 hours ago, williamjm said:

I also watched The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar on Netflix. I remember reading the story as part of one of Dahl's collections several times as a child but I had mostly forgotten the plot until I watched this when it did start to come back to me. I don't think there would have been enough material here for a film, but I think it works well as a 40 minute long short and I think it does suit Wes Anderson's style. I thought Ralph Fiennes was good as Roald Dahl and Cumberbatch as the title character.

Don't forget the three short films that go with it!

Despite my initial dubiousness of the live action One Piece (note: never watched the anime or read the manga), I decided to keep giving it a chance... and today finished the first season.

It's very colorful, production values are high, engaging actors, and occasionally it touches a certain emotional chord I like. In particular, the episode featuring Sanji's origin was something that only works within the logic of a cartoon/manga/comic, and used it to best advantage.

I can't say I was riveted to the screen at all times, but as something to fill the day, and to bring some amusement, it was pretty nice.

Special nods to the character of Arlong, played by McKinley Belcher III, who on initial introduction looked ridiculous but Belcher's presence and menace really worked to make him a pretty worthy villain... and the wildly over-the-top introduction of Dracule Mihawke, the world's greatest swordsman: That one made me laugh.

[TheLastWolf]

The Killer was nice. Though not Fincher enough.

[WarGalley]

Watched Killers of the Flower Moon. I didn’t feel the runtime at all and enjoyed it quite a bit, digging into the backstory for the last couple of days to see what was fact vs. fiction. I may put the book on my To-read list though that list is growing faster than I can read them.

the one thing that stuck out most to me was:

Spoiler

Mollie should have been more devastated than Lily Gladstone showed given the truth about her husband. I felt like that could have been done more dramatically but I’m guessing that was Scorcese’s direction . I can’t imagine a human being responding so stoically to the level of betrayal that she endured.

Good film overall.

[Feologild]

I gave One Piece on Netflix a try

I enjoyed the first episode

 

[TheLastWolf]

29 minutes ago, WarGalley said:

Watched Killers of the Flower Moon. I didn’t feel the runtime at all and enjoyed it quite a bit, digging into the backstory for the last couple of days to see what was fact vs. fiction. I may put the book on my To-read list though that list is growing faster than I can read them.

the one thing that stuck out most to me was:

  Hide contents

Mollie should have been more devastated than Lily Gladstone showed given the truth about her husband. I felt like that could have been done more dramatically but I’m guessing that was Scorcese’s direction . I can’t imagine a human being responding so stoically to the level of betrayal that she endured.

Good film overall.

Spoiler

Deep down she knew all along, just came to terms with her denial

 

[dbunting]

Killers of the Flower moon. I wasn't a fan. It was ok, but not good for me, and I definitely felt the run time. 

Bosch Legacy S2, was pretty good. If you like Bosch you'll like it. Little too heavy on the Maddie for me.

[WarGalley]

1 hour ago, TheLastWolf said:

  Hide contents

Deep down she knew all along, just came to terms with her denial

 

Spoiler

I did get that with the owl visions that Mollie had appearing before visits with Ernest. But the final confrontation was a little too indifferent in my taste.

 

[TheLastWolf]

2 minutes ago, WarGalley said:

  Reveal hidden contents

I did get that with the owl visions that Mollie had appearing before visits with Ernest. But the final confrontation was a little too indifferent in my taste.

 

I'm sorry, I have the book baggage with me. I'll get back to you after a rewatch. 

[WarGalley]

5 minutes ago, dbunting said:

Bosch Legacy S2, was pretty good. If you like Bosch you'll like it. Little too heavy on the Maddie for me.

Still in the middle of the season but Maddie being such a major focus feels like they want to do a spin-off or something. I’m a little disappointed with the way they wrapped up last seasons cliffhanger but I’ll wait and see. I do like the focus on Honey Chandler and her (Mimi Rogers’s) character which feels like a natural progression.

Edited November 14, 2023 by WarGalley

[Zorral]

The Lady Bird Diaries (2023); available on Hulu.  A deeply engaging and illuminating documentary based in 123 hours of audiotape recorded by Lady Bird Johnson herself.  She began making them shortly after Kennedy's murder and her husband being sworn in as POTUS. Her commentaries on the Civil Rights Movement and the Vietnam War are particularly of value, adding dimensions that perhaps others like me may not have considered. These tapes were the central 'archive' employed by journalist Julia E. Sweig, for her best-selling biography, Lady Bird Johnson: Hiding in Plain Sight (2021).

~~~~~~~~~~~~

As for the FreeVee Bosch: I loved the series, until AP use of it to get people to move to their commercial based FreeVee.  I never even finished the first episode of the second season because 1) the commercials were far too many and long, just like tv, which is why I never had one; 2) cannot emotionally deal with yet another young women in dreadful sexual violation and torture peril, in whose character we are invested. People's mileage varies for both issues.

[Mexal]

On 11/13/2023 at 12:35 AM, Nictarion said:

I enjoyed Fincher’s The Killer. Not sure how memorable it will be long term, but it was pretty good overall. It has one of the better fight scenes I’ve seen in a while. 

Have to say though, I would gladly trade both this and Mank for another season of Mindhunter.

I thought it was fine. Enjoyed the one fight scene with the big dude but other than, felt fairly low key. I wasn’t terribly bored but I also wasn’t super entertained. Just ok.

[ljkeane]

15 hours ago, dbunting said:

Bosch Legacy S2, was pretty good. If you like Bosch you'll like it. Little too heavy on the Maddie for me.

Yeah, I like it. It's basically just Bosch with a lower budget. Agreed on there being too much Maddie. I don't have an issue with that in principle but the actress who plays her just isn't very good.

[Zorral]

1 hour ago, ljkeane said:

the actress

She got a lot better until now she's the damsel in peril who must be rescued.  Could they really not have come up with a different story line for the character.  Guess not!  OK.  We can't fridge the daughter (like did the wife) but we'll put her under threat of fridging.  Because what else can you do with a young nubile even if she's a cop?

Edited November 14, 2023 by Zorral

[Ran]

Watched The Creator. Would have liked to see it in a cinema, because it's gorgeous, but the reviews about the mediocre script put me off. But, wanted to support Edwards now that it's streaming, because I think he's absolutely incredible as a visual director, and just needs to drop the idea of writing his own blockbuster-style films. Monsters is written by him, and that's actually very good, but it's the epitome of indie film and I think narrative looseness is totally acceptable there in a way that something trying to be a blockbuster can't have.

So, as I said, absurdly gorgeous, much of it shot on location, with an incredible number of well-done VFX shots, terrific visual design of this sort of industrial cyberpunk future (seriously, I hope the guys working on the Cyberpunk 2077 live-action TV show give Edwards a call), a rather unique story in that it's fundamentally pro-AI which is extremely rare in Hollywood... but it's let down by a certain lack of tight thematic cohesion, doesn't have any real stand-out scenes, and there's a strange lack of tension in a lot of the beats of the film, possibly because of pacing issues, I'm not sure. Maybe the soundtrack is part of it, it's very in the background and I can't really recall any of it.

I could go on at length about problems with the script. As I said, he shouldn't have written the script himself. But it looks great, it achieves an amazing set of visuals on a pretty slim budget ($80 million) thanks to using "prosumer" cameras that allowed them to be a lot nimbler and also allowed them to use small crews to film on location in a way that measurably improves the look of the film, performances are all fine (with a few quite good ones -- Allison Janney always delivers, for example). The story is very mediocre and, yes, derivative in places, as I see @Veltigar mentioned in his review, but it's ... not offensive, I guess? So long as you accept that "rule of cool" is the explanation for a lot of the details of the setting, and don't nitpick things like why someone is using walking, talking robot AI suicide bombers rather than just using missiles or aerial bombardment, weapons they've already shown to have, and things of that sort.

[Isis]

Started watching The Midnight Club at the weekend. It's ok but it suffers from the same problem which many drama series have (especially those with younger actors) - it looks like it's overwritten for the performance. Some of the actors are better than others and for those whose performance is less believable I get distracted during their monologues because it looks like acting. It's a shame when some of the actors are good enough and others are not, the whole thing gets dragged down. Overall a bit disappointing and nowhere near as good as Midnight Mass or the Hill House/Bly Manor series.