Watch, Watched, Watching: Anybody but Superman

[TheLastWolf]

On 4/12/2024 at 7:42 PM, TheLastWolf said:

  Reveal hidden contents

Gangs of Wasseypur, (whole bloody picture like Kill Bill) the best in the crime genre

Tumbbad and the recent Bramayugam if you like some Eggers and Aster like folk horror 

Masaan, social drama

Vidheyan, transition from the feudal era masterpiece, with a Fyodor Karamazov like landlord wrecking havoc

Hey Ram, historical regarding the Gandhi assassination but so much more

Virumaandi, contemporary Rashomon 

Visaranai, brilliant Kafkaesque police procedural

Jallikattu by Lijo Jose Pellissery, lays bare primal human instincts

Super Deluxe, hyperlinked Magnolia but lighter more colourful and I daresay better

Andhadhun (our very own Coen/Safdie brothers equivalent), Aaranya Kaandam (download uncut but mid qlty from Youtube and then sub) are the only neo noirs worth the label

Sholay and Raavanan (Tamil version), good ol' western equivalents with the bandits/dacoits of the heartland taking over, mythical parallels in the latter

Caste issue films later on

And you've seen The Lunchbox

Lot of historical movies which Zorral would love but not really great enough I omit

did my best to choose those least culture specific but nobody is perfect so pls bear that in mind

ETA Filtered a few so I don't frighten you all at once

The Last Farmer, I mean this is up there for me with Tarkovsky, don't know how I missed it earlier. An article (supposed to be a review, but... read and you'll know) that embodies the very essence of this film to help ya along the way.

[Isis]

17 hours ago, Nictarion said:

Civil War was really good. The two biggest things that stood out to me were the sound design (it’s intense!), and Cailee Spaeny. I think the only thing I’ve ever seen her in before this was Bad Times at the El Royale. 

I found it a bit, obvious? 

Spoiler

I felt like the flashback to Lee's (Leigh idk?) war photography portolio was especially heavy-handed. I felt this might have worked better if they interspersed the flashbacks throughout, especially if they wanted to tell the story that she was too damaged by it to carry on/do her job effectively (because of her job).

I also felt the whole master/padawan vibe was a bit too neat/convenient as well.

 

[BigFatCoward]

I'm not going to watch it but i hope this is ridiculed as it sounds it deserves to be.  Billionaire's daughter keeps it real is not something I'm buying. 

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2024/apr/12/lola-movie-nicola-peltz-beckham

[A Horse Named Stranger]

The Fortress (Norwegian series) was really enjoyable. Gets a hoof up.

[kissdbyfire]

9 hours ago, BigFatCoward said:

I'm not going to watch it but i hope this is ridiculed as it sounds it deserves to be.  Billionaire's daughter keeps it real is not something I'm buying. 

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2024/apr/12/lola-movie-nicola-peltz-beckham

Sounds even worse than anything Paris Hilton did, and that’s saying quite a lot.

[polishgenius]

15 hours ago, BigFatCoward said:

I'm not going to watch it but i hope this is ridiculed as it sounds it deserves to be.  Billionaire's daughter keeps it real is not something I'm buying. 

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2024/apr/12/lola-movie-nicola-peltz-beckham

 

Didn't even have the decency to come from Greece, have a thirst for knowledge.

[IlyaP]

56 minutes ago, polishgenius said:

 

Didn't even have the decency to come from Greece, have a thirst for knowledge.

If only she had the chutzpuh to study sculpture at St. Martin's College. 

Edited April 16 by IlyaP

[Heartofice]

Killers of the Flower Moon. I liked the movie, but then I watched it over 4 nights! It was basically a miniseries.

How did anyone manage to get through this in one sitting? Was there an intermission in the cinema?! 

As much as I appreciated it, enjoyed all the performances and the story, was there really 3.5 hours worth of material in there? I reckon you could make a 2hr movie that wouldn't lose anything. It felt quite indulgent. The ending especially with Scorcese himself appearing just felt very on the nose and self important. Is this the curse of older directors?

[IlyaP]

4 hours ago, Heartofice said:

Is this the curse of older directors?

I think it's a thing he stole from Hitchcock in his youth and never abandoned. 

[Ran]

Finished Ripley, a new adaptation of Patricia Highsmith's The Talented Mr. Ripley, written and directed entirely by Steven Zaillian (writer/co-writer of Schindler's List, Searching for Bobby Fisher, Clear and Present Danger, Gangs of New York, Moneyball (with Sorkin), The Girl with The Dragon Tattoo, and The Irishman). It's an absolutely gorgeous show to watch, shot in sumptuous black-and-white by cinematographer Robet Elswit (There Will be Blood, Good Night, and Good Luck, Bologie Nights, Mangolia, Punch-Drunk Love, etc.), with really great production design capturing 1961 Italy. Zaillian uses some very formal camera work and tropes -- I particularly love all the shots of people going up and down stair cases, sometimes brightly-lit Italian village cliffside climbs, other times dark interiors of old palazzos. 

I do think at eight episodes it meanders a bit -- it feels very "European" -- and the biggest flaw, in my mind, is the casting -- everyone is too old for this story. Andrew Scott's Ripley is reptilian, a cold sociopath who hides behind vague amiability, but he's at least 20 years too old for the part. Johnny Flynn (younger half-brother of GoT's own Jerome Flynn, aka Bronn) is also about 15-20 years too old, and his performance is that of a very mediocre, kind of whiny trust fund baby, nothing like Jude Law's lively, 1000-watt presence in Minghella's The Talented Mr. Ripley, but the TV show follows the line of the books closer in this regard. While it raises one question for me -- why would this nebbish Dickie Greenleaf let Tom hang around for months if neither he nor Marge likes him; this is a question Minghella's version fixes by making Dickie wilder and Tom capable of easy latching on to his obsession for jazz to appeal to him.

Also featuring is Dakota Fanning as Marge, a quieter and more studied performance compared to Gwyneth Paltrow's, but it works well. Alas, the show does not have a Philip Seymour Hoffman to inhabit Freddy Miles, his loud, smarmy cruel frat boy who makes a big entrance and steals every scene he's in. They go a very different direction with Freddy (perhaps closer to the novel), where he's a sophisticated Brit, a "playwright" allegedly, but a wealthy dilettante mostly. He's played by Eliot Sumner, the non-binary child of Sting (the singer, not the pro wrestler), but there's no toying with the idea that Freddy is anything but a male on the show (we get a glimpse of his passport at one point). He's much quieter in his sneering, more sophisticated than Hoffman's character, but in the end Sumner's is among the least of the main performances.

 

Anyways, it's very sumptuous, and fun. I prefer Minghella's film because it's more direct and I think the changes made to the story really work, but if you want to see something much closer to the novel (except I gather it veers strongly at the end to do its own thing), this is it. Though I have seen people say the 1960 French film Purple Noon, with a young and beautiful Alain Delon as Ripley, is worth watching.

(Oh, also, John Malkovich has a cameo in a cute nod to the fact that he played an older Ripley in Ripley's Game.)

[dbunting]

Watched a few things this weekend.

Civil War, It was ok, a little better than I thought but ended a little weaker and made some strange decisions. The beginning and middle were pretty good, surreal stuff. It was only the last couple minutes that seemed off IMO.

Spoiler

So Lee and the main guy seem like a team, like they have been through it all together and yet when she dies he doesn't bat an eye and just keeps on going, like at that point he had already written her off and was quite literally attached to the new photographer. 

Then his whole point on the trip was to interview the President and his entire payoff is "don't let them kill me"???   Also, I know they did this for the drama but the pres would have been locked in a bunker, not literally cowering behind the desk in the oval office.

Also binged Fallout over the weekend. I knew nothing about the game so this was just a whim. It's pretty damn entertaining. I mean it's another apocalypse series and it's based on a video game so my expectations were pretty low but damn this was a fun season. It's didn't have the one great episode like The Last of Us had but from beginning to end I enjoyed this much more.

[HexMachina]

15 hours ago, IlyaP said:

If only she had the chutzpuh to study sculpture at St. Martin's College. 

I dunno, that's where I caught her eye

[Zorral]

Huh.  Black Sails, all seasons, is up and available on NF.  How did that happen?  But then HBO's Sex and the City is on NF now.

[dbunting]

3 hours ago, Zorral said:

Huh.  Black Sails, all seasons, is up and available on NF.  How did that happen?  But then HBO's Sex and the City is on NF now.

If you only have Netflix and not HBO you cant see Sex and city and therefore the audience for it is limited. But if they license it to Netflix for one year at xxx million dollars, they make money and grow the fan base. Then bring back the rights and hope some audience follows. Either way you made millions by licensing it to them for a year on something thats years and years old.

 

[Zorral]

Also all Killing Eve's seasons are available on both Acorn (with which the feckless AMC made a deal last year) and NF! 

I dumped AMC this year.  I'm thisclose to dumping MAX right now.

More places to watch some shows, but ultimately fewer shows to watch -- or at least want to.

I enjoyed the first seasons of Killing Eve a lot -- and a lot more than the last ones, but not enough to want to rewatch them.  Not that great a fan of S&TC back then, and by now it's really out of date -- not that it was very real to start with -- and have no interest in that show -- it's irrelevant to even NYC life as we know it -- though never very relevant.  Billions is far closer, actually very close, to the criminal and political and capitalist levels of things here.

But it's like ... well, somebody/ies wants to built a new preposterously high building in midtown -- where most of the real estate is empty buildings and dark. Most particularly the new buildings completed right before or during the pandemic.  Perhaps most notably the Hudson Yards Development, which is a total bomb -- and it's not even in Midtown.  But business skyscrapers were already in a downturn before 2019.  Nobody ever learns anything.  Even while in the throes of it. 

https://pix11.com/news/local-news/manhattan/new-skyscraper-planned-for-midtown-manhattan-mayor-says/

Regarding Hudson Yards -- which bombed, crashed, burned, guess who is connected to it . . . .

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/27/business/stephen-ross-related-corner-office-trump.html

 

Edited April 17 by Zorral

[Ran]

Watched The Sympathizer, Park Chan-Wook's adaptation for HBO of the Pulitzer winning novel of the same name by Viet Thanh Nguyen. Robert Downey Jr. features as a CIA agent who interacts with the lead character, known only as the Captain, played by Hoa Xuande, who is a North Vietnamese mole inside the South Vietnamese secrete police. It's shot with Park's typical verve and style, cutting back and forth in time, and features a pretty nail-biting sequence as the Fall of Saigon begins and people are rushing the American air base to try and get one of the last flights out.

It's quite good.

[Isis]

On 4/16/2024 at 2:59 PM, Ran said:

Finished Ripley, a new adaptation of Patricia Highsmith's The Talented Mr. Ripley, written and directed entirely by Steven Zaillian (writer/co-writer of Schindler's List, Searching for Bobby Fisher, Clear and Present Danger, Gangs of New York, Moneyball (with Sorkin), The Girl with The Dragon Tattoo, and The Irishman). It's an absolutely gorgeous show to watch, shot in sumptuous black-and-white by cinematographer Robet Elswit (There Will be Blood, Good Night, and Good Luck, Bologie Nights, Mangolia, Punch-Drunk Love, etc.), with really great production design capturing 1961 Italy. Zaillian uses some very formal camera work and tropes -- I particularly love all the shots of people going up and down stair cases, sometimes brightly-lit Italian village cliffside climbs, other times dark interiors of old palazzos. 

Anyways, it's very sumptuous, and fun. I prefer Minghella's film because it's more direct and I think the changes made to the story really work, but if you want to see something much closer to the novel (except I gather it veers strongly at the end to do its own thing), this is it. Though I have seen people say the 1960 French film Purple Noon, with a young and beautiful Alain Delon as Ripley, is worth watching.

(Oh, also, John Malkovich has a cameo in a cute nod to the fact that he played an older Ripley in Ripley's Game.)

We are five eps in (we are only watching on weekends as we don't have time for watching an hour long episode that needs concentration during the week!). I made the same comment about staircases - it reminded me that as a 16 year old I kept a dream diary and my recurring theme was stairs (apparently they stand for challenges). The guy playing Dickie is just not it. Personally I think Andrew Scott works fine. He's different but still definitely works for me as an older, been around the block a bit kind of creep. It's way too long overall and I am still on the fence about Dakota Fanning (in this, not in general - I think she is good generally). AH. STING??? I felt like there was something so familiar about Freddy's face?! I enjoyed that performance - very knowing and cocky.

 

On 4/16/2024 at 8:11 PM, dbunting said:

Watched a few things this weekend.

Civil War, It was ok, a little better than I thought but ended a little weaker and made some strange decisions. The beginning and middle were pretty good, surreal stuff. It was only the last couple minutes that seemed off IMO.

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So Lee and the main guy seem like a team, like they have been through it all together and yet when she dies he doesn't bat an eye and just keeps on going, like at that point he had already written her off and was quite literally attached to the new photographer. 

Then his whole point on the trip was to interview the President and his entire payoff is "don't let them kill me"???   Also, I know they did this for the drama but the pres would have been locked in a bunker, not literally cowering behind the desk in the oval office.

Agree, the end did not ring true with the rest of the film. I dunno, man. Alex Garland as a director might just be an 'eh' for me. 

I was at a swimming pool in central London yesterday morning and some absolute idiot in the changing room was describing the events at the end of the film in a VERY LOUD VOICE (fucking triathletes). Are you unable to speak about a film you've seen without telling the person what happens??? It's only been out for five days ffs. 

15 hours ago, Zorral said:

Huh.  Black Sails, all seasons, is up and available on NF.  How did that happen?  But then HBO's Sex and the City is on NF now.

Not in the UK.  I started watching it on Prime a few years back and when I had seen two eps they pulled it. 

[Zorral]

6 hours ago, Isis said:

I started watching it on Prime a few years back and when I had seen two eps they pulled it. 

If you get a chance to watch it, it well worth it.  I personally had a very hard time with the centering of degradation and torture of some female characters, i.e. doubtful this was necessary to have such prolonged views of same to advance plot and develop characters.

[Ramsay B.]

15 hours ago, Isis said:

Agree, the end did not ring true with the rest of the film. I dunno, man. Alex Garland as a director might just be an 'eh' for me. 

He’s 5-5 with me. Ex-Machina and Annihilation were great. I just saw Civil War and really liked it. Men and Devs were both solid at the very least. I hope he’s not done with making movies like he supposedly said recently. Although now seeing conflicting reports of that. Who knows?

[A True Kaniggit]

I watched Civil War last Sunday. And my thoughts are that the battle scenes during the movie show exactly what they are supposed to. How terrifying and bloody a civil war in the U.S. would be.

But story wise, the movie is a let down.

 

But I would still watch it again for the battle scenes. Especially for the audio during the battles. BANG!