Watch, Watched, Watching: Watching Severance and working for Lumon

[Which Tyler]

1 hour ago, Deadlines? What Deadlines? said:

House just hit Netflix in Canada. All eight seasons.

I'm watching House. 

It's not lupus. 

First 2-3 seasons are amongst the best interpretations of Sherlock Holmes I've seen

Edited February 13 by Which Tyler

[Deadlines? What Deadlines?]

49 minutes ago, Which Tyler said:

First 2-3 seasons are amongst the best interpretations of Sherlock Holmes I've seen

Clinic hours are a guilty pleasure. They should do a spinoff show that's nothing but clinic hours. 

[Ran]

4 hours ago, horangi said:

I also wrapped up Mr & Mrs Smith and agree with the rest that Glover and Erskine played characters with real depth. The episode plots were just as ludicrous as Reacher, but they were able to sell it far better.  A couple quibbles for an overall good show- the later episodes got a tad tedious as they started bickering constantly and the missions were boiled down into like 20 seconds of flashbacks.

Finished as well, and agree that there's a bit of a dip right after the mid-point, but OTOH it played a big role in setting up the ending which I felt was very strong.

 

Regarding your spoilers:

Spoiler

I feel like the "Hihi being (a) god" thing may be a seed to explore if there is an S2. 

Absolutely 100% agreed with Max's death -- was a complete surprise and something I thought they wouldn't dare do, but it made perfect sense.

Kind of love that Paul Dano's "hot neighbor" was just a real estate guy, and I loved his explaining why their too-good-to-be-true home was his white whale. When put that way -- two historic brownstones shoved into one unit, added pool and garage that would have cost tens of millions, no permitting documents to be found anywhere -- it was just a great nod to the trope where TV characters live in ridiculously fabulous homes or massive apartments without it being acknowledged.

 

[dbunting]

2 hours ago, Ran said:

 

  Hide contents

I feel like the "Hihi being (a) god" thing may be a seed to explore if there is an S2. 

Absolutely 100% agreed with Max's death -- was a complete surprise and something I thought they wouldn't dare do, but it made perfect sense.

Kind of love that Paul Dano's "hot neighbor" was just a real estate guy, and I loved his explaining why their too-good-to-be-true home was his white whale. When put that way -- two historic brownstones shoved into one unit, added pool and garage that would have cost tens of millions, no permitting documents to be found anywhere -- it was just a great nod to the trope where TV characters live in ridiculously fabulous homes or massive apartments without it being acknowledged.

 

Agree with this about Mr Mrs Smith

Spoiler

It was nice to see something called out like that, unlike Seinfeld, Friends, living in way too nice of places for their salaries. Hell even The Bundy's living in a big 4 bedroom house in Chicago suburb and he sells shoes???  

And the cat was a shocker, kind of glad they did it just because it was so unexpected. I'm a big softy and hate seeing animals die so don't get me wrong, I just liked it for the story. 

 

[Ran]

Watched Moneyball for lack of anything better to do. I love the first half more than I love the second half, personally, but it has such great dialog and verve, and Jonah Hill is fantastic. I know Art Howe hated his portrayal in the book and in the film, and that a the book elides a lot of things that make things a lot more complicated... like the fact that two absolutely key players for the 2002 A's were Barry Zito and Miguel Tejada, who respectively won the Cy Young and the AL MVP awards, and were not discovered through Sabermtric-like analysis for "value" players but through straight, traditional scouting.

For that matter, most of the people who the A's drafted that year did not make lasting careers in the MLB, and some never even played a single inning.

Then rewatched Legends of the Fall, in part because of Ed Zwick's new memoir. An excerpt in Vanity Fair talked a lot about his experience with Pitt on the film. It's a gorgeously-lensed film, James Horner's score is beautifully epic and romantic (but also too dominant -- they could have pulled i back some), and I thought that Hopkins in particular gave a fine performance of the gruff Cornish pater familias. I'd like to read Jim Hopkins's original novella some time.

[Ran]

A bad back and then a mild flu put paid to my hopes of watching The Zone of Interest this week, so I saw HBO Max had Sexy Beast and I realized it's been way too long since I've seen it. Honestly, it's as good as I remember it to be -- Kingsley's performance as Don Logan is brilliantly nasty -- but I forgot how much, well, arthouse stuff was in it thanks to the gun-toting anthropomorphic rabbit that appears in dream-like sequences. Ian McShane as Teddy Bass "Mr. Black Magic", was also very good, as (of course) was Ray Winstone  as our retired criminal protagonist. I googled a bit and saw that Winstone says his two week "rehearsal" period -- where he went to Spain two weeks before production began to get as tan as possible and to pack on some weight -- was the best "rehearsal" he's ever had.

Also, great use of music in the film. It's a very flashy film, in a lot of ways, which makes sense for one of the late 90's best and most innovative music video directors.

Going to see if I can find Birth, which I've never seen before.

 

[Heartofice]

Finished Mr & Mrs Smith. I see why some thought the last few episodes were not as strong,  but I feel the way the show was structured they were necessary.

They did a very good job of really analysing the couples relationship and even though episodes 6+7 were a little depressing, I think that was the point. They needed to do that to build up to the last episode which really was fantastic. Can’t wait for them to make more. 
 

Started watching the new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie, but honestly it’s one of the ugliest looking things I’ve ever seen. It’s like they took the Spiderverse aesthetic and told a child to recreate it. 

[DMC]

On 2/14/2024 at 1:18 PM, Ran said:

I know Art Howe hated his portrayal in the book and in the film, and that a the book elides a lot of things that make things a lot more complicated... like the fact that two absolutely key players for the 2002 A's were Barry Zito and Miguel Tejada, who respectively won the Cy Young and the AL MVP awards, and were not discovered through Sabermtric-like analysis for "value" players but through straight, traditional scouting.

Also pitchers Tim Hudson and Mark Mulder, and third baseman Eric Chavez.  The film is not very accurate in general - and particularly unfair to Howe - but who cares (well, Howe certainly has a legit beef)?  Gotta say it's one of those movies that I like more and more the more times I see it.  Both Pitt and Hill deliver their A-game, and it's one of my favorite endings of any movie made in recent memory ("you're such a loser dad").  

I love Charlie Wilson's War, but gotta say Moneyball is my favorite Sorkin film.

[Rippounet]

Watched Reality tonight. Very good short movie, with a refreshing concept that achieves emotional impact with very little means. Partner and I were both misty-eyed at the end of it.

[Isis]

Tested positive for covid yesterday morning so came home from work and watched some mind-numbing horror: Malevolent and Killer Book Club. KBC is meant to be like a modern-day, social media savvy Scream, I guess, but with killer clowns. In its favour I will say that it is short (90 minutes). Malevolent (with Florence Pugh and Celia Imrie) is a sad, could-have-been-a-moody-dark-little-horror but for some reason chose to be a predictable unimaginative story about a brother and sister who pretend to be ghost hunters. Meh.

[Ran]

15 hours ago, Rippounet said:

Watched Reality tonight. Very good short movie, with a refreshing concept that achieves emotional impact with very little means. Partner and I were both misty-eyed at the end of it.

Is this the 2023 film about Reality Winner, or the 2014 French film directed by Quentin Dupieux?

[Rippounet]

16 minutes ago, Ran said:

Is this the 2023 film about Reality Winner, or the 2014 French film directed by Quentin Dupieux?

The 2023 movie about Reality Winner.

[Ran]

33 minutes ago, Rippounet said:

The 2023 movie about Reality Winner.

Saw that as well, was surprisingly effective to just go straight off the transcripts, and Sweeney did a good job with it.

[DireWolfSpirit]

Not really wowed by Halo, Foundation is between seasons, so I decided to try Star Trek Discovery S1, am through the first 2 episodes and im hooked.

Michael Burnham (the protagonist) is so intriguing. The actress Sonequa Chaunté Martin-Green  is like a Rihanna action figure, except Einstein smart, really what is not to absolutely love, I cant look away!

Edited February 18 by DireWolfSpirit

[dbunting]

Caught a clip of Red earlier in day and decided to watch it again. I saw it years ago and didn't care for it too much. This time around I appreciated it a little more. It had a Oceans 11 feel to it that I don't think I caught the first time.  Not a bad action flick at all. I'll probably watch part 2 because of this.

[polishgenius]

Always amused me that RED came out in the same year as the A-Team, Expendables, and The Losers, with all 4 having very similar premises (Expendables being a bit different in delivery of course).

 

 

Shame The Losers got a bit lost in the churn of all that, fun film with an insanely cool cast.

[Heartofice]

Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning. I heard this flopped a bit and wasn’t as good as Fallout. It’s probably not on that level but it sort of hits that MI middle ground.

It’s got everything you need really for a MI movie, incomprehensible plot that you don’t really need to fully follow, flashbacks to previous movies you don’t remember, over the top characters, worldwide locations with cars crashing through them, and a bunch of action set pieces that are generally very well done and risk Tom Cruises life. 
 

It doesn’t hit any new levels, and the plot seems especially silly this time round, like it’s hit a bunch of ‘what’s trending’ keywords and made a movie out of it. 
 

Plus, everyone is really showing their age. Tom has been defying time for a while, but it’s really starting to show now. No amount of hair dye and face lifts can really hide the fact that he’s growing old. It’s at the point where it just looks odd now. Fair play to the guy for keeping going, no idea how he does it, but it’s not believable any more.

And poor Simon Pegg and Ving Rhames look like they escaped from a home! Rhames seems barely conscious most of the time, and is mostly just sitting there in a daze.

I still liked it though, it was fun. One of the better MI movies, there have been a couple of stinkers.

[Isis]

I watched King Richard last night. For a film that was 2hrs + it moved pretty fast. Without really knowing anything about Richard Williams I thought that was a truly absorbing performance from Will Smith. Did they give him fake teeth for this or just CGI that in post? I guess part of the pacing of this is that what we see took place over literally years and years but we kind of glance off the events, seeing very few of them in detail. It was a really absorbing film to watch but I feel a bit weird about it now, because it feels like such an incredible (Cinderella) story of achievement should be about the girls and what *they* achieved but it's a film about him. I know it says that on the tin. I don't know. Maybe I need to see a film from Venus and Serena's perspective now. 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

3 hours ago, Isis said:

I watched King Richard last night. For a film that was 2hrs + it moved pretty fast. Without really knowing anything about Richard Williams I thought that was a truly absorbing performance from Will Smith. Did they give him fake teeth for this or just CGI that in post? I guess part of the pacing of this is that what we see took place over literally years and years but we kind of glance off the events, seeing very few of them in detail. It was a really absorbing film to watch but I feel a bit weird about it now, because it feels like such an incredible (Cinderella) story of achievement should be about the girls and what *they* achieved but it's a film about him. I know it says that on the tin. I don't know. Maybe I need to see a film from Venus and Serena's perspective now. 

It is from their perspective and that's kind of the problem with biopics when family members control the narrative. They had a lot of influence on the film and totally white washed their father's history. Richard Williams is not a good person. He did a great job creating two star athletes, but he's also a problematic figure. It would be like if Tiger Woods made a biopic about his dad and left out that he would make Tiger sit outside of rooms while he was constantly cheating on his mom and forced him to break up with his first love. And I'm sure said film wouldn't include that she got her revenge by burying him in an unmarked grave only she knows about.

I think this is going to become more of a problem going forward. Creative control in exchange for the story allows for a lot of misrepresentations, if not flat out lies. 

[williamjm]

On 2/13/2024 at 5:05 PM, horangi said:

I also wrapped up Mr & Mrs Smith and agree with the rest that Glover and Erskine played characters with real depth. The episode plots were just as ludicrous as Reacher, but they were able to sell it far better.  A couple quibbles for an overall good show- the later episodes got a tad tedious as they started bickering constantly and the missions were boiled down into like 20 seconds of flashbacks.
 

  Reveal hidden contents

I was expecting some sort of reveal with Hihi- all the missions seemed to target uber-rich folks and between Hihi responding nearly instantly to their texts and the he's 'god' comment by the other Mr and Ms Smith, I thought there would be a twist.

Between the psychologist and the unclear ending, it seemed to borrow pretty heavily from the Sopranos. 

Finally, how can you kill the cat! 

 

I also finished watched it and thought it was a good series. I would have happily watched more of it, I think the final few episodes do make a strong ending but I think there was some potential for some more missions to be put in the middle of the season. Glover and Erskine were both great in it, and the guest actors were fun (particularly Ron Perlmann).

Spoiler

The bit in the finale with Hihi being referred to as 'God' and their apparent omniscience did make me think of Person of Interest.

I then watched Rebel Moon on Netflix, which I did not have high expectations for but was still worse than I thought it would be. Snyder's films are often flawed but I don't think any of them have been as dull as this, there are usually some good bits in them. It did almost feel like an extended prologue since most of the film is about recruiting the rebels, most of whom then fail to do much in this film. The robot was probably the most interesting character, although they disappeared for 90% of the film.