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

[DMC]

Curious to know if anyone's seen the Bob Marley biopic yet?  It's not getting great reviews and I'm fine just waiting for streaming, but..I didn't have many idols or role models growing up.  Probably the only two were Marley and Malcolm X.  So, I do look forward to seeing it eventually even if it is generally mediocre.

[Spockydog]

On 2/20/2024 at 1:10 AM, kissdbyfire said:

I started watching Fortitude. I have no idea why I hadn’t yet, but I’m enjoying it so far and I hope it doesn’t abruptly jump the shark halfway through.

Don't worry. The shark gets leaped much earlier than that. Glorious stuff. Absolutely loved this show.

[kissdbyfire]

3 minutes ago, Spockydog said:

Don't worry. The shark gets leaped much earlier than that. Glorious stuff. Absolutely loved this show.

I loved the 1st series. I'm watching the 3nd now and... hmmm... not sure. But early days, still have 6 or 7 episodes to go.

[Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II]

7 hours ago, Heartofice said:

Yeah they both came out at roughly the same time and I initially thought Yellowjackets was this much superior version, but now having watched both I’m not sure either one is very good. 

The superior version was ANOTHER show about a bunch of high school kids stuck in a town called The Society on Netflix. It was actually the best of the lot but it got cancelled :/ 

[Isis]

8 hours ago, Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II said:

The superior version was ANOTHER show about a bunch of high school kids stuck in a town called The Society on Netflix. It was actually the best of the lot but it got cancelled :/ 

This got cancelled just when it was getting REALLY interesting! It asked difficuly questions and was brutal in places. Tragic that The Wilds got that super weak second season and this only got one season. 

[Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II]

5 hours ago, Isis said:

This got cancelled just when it was getting REALLY interesting! It asked difficuly questions and was brutal in places. Tragic that The Wilds got that super weak second season and this only got one season. 

Ya, Netflix also cancelled Mike Flannigans Midnight Club, seems they don’t want any decent young adult flicks :/ 

[DireWolfSpirit]

I seem to just love Noomi Rapace in every role she's in and yet again im loving her in "Constellation".

[KingintheNorth4]

This evening I watched Sonic The Hedgehog. As a longtime Sonic fan, this was nice to watch. I especially liked Jim Carrey's performance as Dr. Robotnik, it really felt like he was in his element and was the highlight of the film for me. 

[Isis]

It took me at least four attempts to get through Maestro. Suffice it to say that I didn't enjoy it anywhere as much as I expected that I would. The accent used by Carey Mulligan (oopsy, forgot the character's name already) was just really distracting. I'm sure this was an accurate representation (because why would they do this otherwise) but that affected, absolutely artificial-sounding accent is so uncomfortable to my ears. Anyway, that's hardly the key feature of the film. I don't know, I just found Bradley Cooper's performance to be way, way too much. Yes, I know that's the point. Sure, LB's life story is interesting in the context of the times, but Jesus, it must have been exhausting to have to interact with someone so self-absorbed. I feel like maybe if I'd seen this film in the cinema and had to watch it in one sitting then maybe I'd have appreciated it a bit more? I really went in expecting to love this but I just found it tiresome and annoying. I mean, did he really 'train' for six months to act like he was conducting in one specific scene? Perhaps that is what is wrong with the film.

[dbunting]

Finished S1 of Slow Horses and I really enjoyed it for a few reasons. I like the pacing, around 40 min episodes and the whole season was just six episodes. I also liked the actors in this compared to say True Detective Night Country where I found the lead character just annoying. The other thing that was nice is that this was somewhat grounded in reality. You could see this scenario play out in real life and it wouldn't be shocking, so it's how the characters act with each other that carries the show, not over the top chases and death defying scenarios.

[3CityApache]

1 minute ago, dbunting said:

Finished S1 of Slow Horses and I really enjoyed it for a few reasons. 

And it only gets better. I think third season is the best so far, even despite some over the top elements.

[AncalagonTheBlack]

1 hour ago, 3CityApache said:

And it only gets better. I think third season is the best so far, even despite some over the top elements.

Gary Oldman is the best thing about this show! 

[Derfel Cadarn]

3 hours ago, AncalagonTheBlack said:

Gary Oldman is the best thing about this show! 

His ‘inspirational’ speeches. “You’re all fucking useless and working with you has been the lowest point of a disappointing career…”

[DireWolfSpirit]

14 hours ago, Derfel Cadarn said:

His ‘inspirational’ speeches. “You’re all fucking useless and working with you has been the lowest point of a disappointing career…”

Think I may have to save that for future use of my own.

[BigFatCoward]

Finally got around to watching Saltburn. 2 things, firstly i would be devastated if one of my kids went to Oxbridge (Daughter maybe, son no chance, he's a fucking idiot).

Secondly, and i think i might get some stick for this, i really don't get the fuss about that Irish dude, I've seen him in 3 things and he's distinctly fucking MEH (eternals, Banshees of wherever and this).

[Heartofice]

17 minutes ago, BigFatCoward said:

Finally got around to watching Saltburn. 2 things, firstly i would be devastated if one of my kids went to Oxbridge (Daughter maybe, son no chance, he's a fucking idiot).

The buzz around Saltburn is really pretty unexpected. It seems have developed a level of hype I would never have imagined from an A24 movie. I think the marketing of the movie, combined with a lot of 'you have to watch this scene' style organic hype have contributed to it just creating an underground sensation. To the point where the estate where the movie was filmed has had to bring in security to combat Tik Tok trespassers
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-northamptonshire-68397443

 

20 minutes ago, BigFatCoward said:

Secondly, and i think i might get some stick for this, i really don't get the fuss about that Irish dude, I've seen him in 3 things and he's distinctly fucking MEH (eternals, Banshees of wherever and this).

I think Barry Keoghan is great and I'd probably watch him in anything, but I would also say Saltburn and Eternals are not exactly him at his best. Obviously Eternals is just quite shit and nobody comes out looking good from that, I enjoyed his performance in Saltburn and I found his turn in Banshees pretty funny too. Killing of a Sacred Deer is where I first noticed him and his take there fits perfectly with Yorgos Lanthimos' style, he is utterly chilling. I also liked his small part in The Green Knight. He was also good in Chernobyl. 

Actually, outside of Eternals, which totally wasted him, I've liked him in everything.

[Ramsay B.]

I have yet to see Saltburn or Banshees but Keoghan killed it in The Killing of a Sacred Deer. He’s also been really good in everything else I’ve seen him in- a small part in The Green Knight, The Shadow of Violence and some others. 

Speaking of Barry, I finally rewatched Dunkirk after being initially let down the first time at the theatre. I really don’t know what I was thinking. It’s great. 

[Ran]

"Oh, there goes that dream" is one of the best line deliveries of, I don't know, the last twenty years of film. 

I've watched a fair lot. Some was rewatching things I've seen before -- The Revenant is just on another level of film-making, All The President's Men made investigative reporting seem incredibly exciting (the serial phone calls, chasing a lead, was really well done), The Pianist was heartbreaking (and Brody's hands just look like a pianists), The Quick and the Dead (trashy, but I forgot how explicitly Leone-esque the opening was; also, Di Caprio, Keith David, and Russell Crowe all getting to work with the legendary Gene Hackman in the film was pretty cool), Cast Away (a very fine Zemeckis-Hanks film, which I hadn't seen in decades). 

A couple of new (to me) films, though: The African Queen, which I'd genuinely never seen before, and which was... well, maybe the least of John Huston's films. I can't say I particularly enjoyed it, even in a nostalgic sense. It just comes off as very staid and old fashioned, with very little zip to it. I think, obviously, that back in 1955 it would have come off very differently -- it was filmed on location in Africa, and offered sights and images in full color that would have been really something for audiences of the day -- but I just couldn't hang with it.

Finally got to see Glazer's The Zone of Interest. A bone-chilling film. The infrared sections were a completely surprise to me, and provided a response to the banality of evil made manifest in the Höss family through a very simple but incredibly brave act of humanity.

Spoiler

I think my "favorite" thread of the film was probably Rudolf Höss's mother-in-law, who arrives all puffed up with pride for her daughter's station as "Queen of Auschwitz" but crumples and flees in the night as the oppressive atmosphere of what's happening just over the garden wall gets to her.

The coda of the film, at the end, was also very powerful. Fine, fine stuff. Höss's retching reminded me of a scene in Joshua Oppenheimer's amazing documentary The Act of Killing, and I saw that Glazer had that very film in mind. Very much recommend it, for anyone who hasn't seen it. It's not an easy film to sit through, though.

 

[Isis]

9 hours ago, Ramsay B. said:

I have yet to see Saltburn or Banshees but Keoghan killed it in The Killing of a Sacred Deer. He’s also been really good in everything else I’ve seen him in- a small part in The Green Knight, The Shadow of Violence and some others. 

See, I don't really remember him all that much in that film (Sacred Deer) - all I really remember is the super creepy 'general anaesthetic' scene. Definitely can't remember him in The Green Knight either. Maybe he's just not very memorable, compared to other actors in the same films. Or, maybe it is just my aging brain.

I downloaded the ASOIAF audiobooks onto my phone again recently and have been slowly working through them during bouts of insomnia. After the horror of the last couple of seasons it's easy to forget that there were some highly entertaining bits in the earlier seasons. I just watched the purple wedding and a supercut of the queen of thornes being disdainful of people on YT. We didn't deserve Diana Rigg. 

[Heartofice]

13 minutes ago, Isis said:

Maybe he's just not very memorable,

Say what you like about him but you really can’t say this. If nothing else he doesn’t look like a Hollywood actor, and that alone makes him stand out.