What Have You Watched Recently?

[Ternaugh]

Cowboys & Aliens: One of the discs lurking in my Netflix DVD.com queue, I sat down to watch it today. Well, when I say that I "sat down", what I really mean to say is that I would frequently pause the disc and tinker with something around me*. The movie should have been a slam-dunk, but is instead an overly-long film with occasional bursts of action. (Netflix Blu-ray)

 

 

*So, it turns out, it's a bad idea to leave alkaline batteries in unused remotes for long periods of time. Vinegar works well to remove the crusty residue, and Q-Tips are handy for reaching into the little nooks. This process was more entertaining to me than certain sections of the movie.

[Spence]

16 minutes ago, Ternaugh said:

*So, it turns out, it's a bad idea to leave alkaline batteries in unused remotes for long periods of time. Vinegar works well to remove the crusty residue, and Q-Tips are handy for reaching into the little nooks. This process was more entertaining to me than certain sections of the movie.

 

You just described me and most of what can be laughingly called "award winning" movies these days.  Or heck, most of the movies at all these days. 

 

Every time I think of a movie that was just a "great and fun time", it winds up being from years ago.

[mattingly]

50 minutes ago, Duke Bushido said:

I have, and it's not unenjoyable-- it's reminiscent of some of the 80s prime-time stuff, in its scripting, really-- but (and I realize it was done primarily to institute dialogue and to water-down the idea that on all the earth there was at least _one_ person so knowledgeable) I found the need for multiple "Librarians" to kind of weaken the premise; the idea lost something.  Still good fun, but not as, if you catch my meaning there.

 

Yes. It was a necessary side effect of turning a solo hero into a team dynamic. In a way, I think it may have been more fun, for me.

 

 

24 minutes ago, Ternaugh said:

Cowboys & Aliens: The movie should have been a slam-dunk

 

I was expecting it to be just a dunk. But it was better than I expected. I guess I expected a C- and it delivered a C+.

 

 

Also, I've been rewatching Halt and Catch Fire. I just finished season 1, and am starting on 2. It's nice that each season was only 10 episodes, and covered a different era. There's little room for plot dragging.

 

[Bazza]

Aquaman. 

[Jeffrywith1e]

Finally watched Baby Driver and absolutely loved it!

[Bazza]

John Wick. A modern day Get Carter. 

[Michael Hopcroft]

I saw Downton Abbey last night, so I could tell my mother (a real enthusiast, who happened to be stuck at home sick) whether the movie was any good. for those who are completely unfamiliar, Downton Abbey is a British TV series about the Crawley family (hereditary Earls of Grantham) and their domestic staff in a changing England of the early 20th century. The series ran six seasons, and my mother loved it. Naturally she wanted to take me to the movie, but with her illness I had to go in her stead.

 

The movie is sumptuous, to be sure, well-acted, and dramatic. It is also virtually incomprehensible if you do not already know who these people are and why they are supposed to matter. And I can't help but have the sense they don't. Their privelege will not last. Apocalypse is coming to the Crawleys in the form of the Great Depression and the Second World War, and no amount of starched collars, courtly dances, and regimental parades is going to save them.

 

The plot of the film centers around a visit by King George V, portrayed as jovial and a little bit clueless -- a mediocrity who knows he's a mediocrity and has come to terms with it, and with the adulation he receives but doesn't really deserve. Meanwhile, the nobles scheme about a disputed inheritance, useless trinkets worth a year's pay for most workers start disappearing,  the staff engage in a petty intrigue against the arrogant interlopers who follow the King around everywhere he goes, and there are oblique references to the recent "troubles" in Ireland and to 1920s legal homophobia.

 

And it remains unclear exactly what the Earl of Grantham actually does. What is his function in English society and government? Does he even have one?

 

 

[tkdguy]

At that time, all hereditary nobles were automatically in the House of Lords. So the Earl had some experience in government, although that's never shown in the series, AFAIK. I don't know if the family had some private business. 

[L. Marcus]

Probably owned hyuuuge ... tracts of land!

[Starlord]

They has some land, but the earl mismanaged it.  The fortune was lost in the first couple seasons, but then gained a new one through a marriage to the eldest daughter.  It's a decent show, oddly compelling.  The wife is a huge fan.

[Cassandra]

Prodigal Son.

 

Terrible show.

 

 I didn't Dr. Bashir had a kid.

[Matt the Bruins]

Last night I watched the first episode of Marianne over at a friend's place. At first I thought it was going to be cheesy, but it got really effective and creepy as the show went on. I cracked my friend up by shouting "Look at me, Damien. It's all for you!" as soon as Caro peeked her head over that incredibly high atrium balcony.

[mattingly]

I finished up rewatching Halt and Catch Fire.

 

Now, on to my rewatch of Mr. Robot.

 

[slikmar]

Went and saw Ad Astra. Pitt is excellent, but know going in, in the previews you saw ALL the action sequences.The movie is really one long look into the mind of Pitt's character.

[Spence]

15 minutes ago, slikmar said:

Went and saw Ad Astra. Pitt is excellent, but know going in, in the previews you saw ALL the action sequences.The movie is really one long look into the mind of Pitt's character.

 

Did you consider it worth it to watch? 

[Tjack]

   This week I’ve been watching the PBS/Ken Burns multi-part documentary on Country Music.  I’m watching the last part that takes us up to the present day right now.

    I tend to like a little of a lot of different types of music, but I really enjoy the format Burns does on any subject.

[Cassandra]

Stumptown.

 

Cobie needs to fire her agent  .  ..  . from a cannon.

[Tjack]

Just now, Cassandra said:

Stumptown.

 

Cobie needs to fire her agent  .  ..  . from a cannon.

 

 

    I liked it.  

   The show is based on the comic written by Greg Rucka.   A writer who’s comics and novels I enjoy.

[Cassandra]

11 minutes ago, Tjack said:

 

 

    I liked it.  

   The show is based on the comic written by Greg Rucka.   A writer who’s comics and novels I enjoy.

 

The name sounds familiar.

 

They needed to clean the camera lens.  It looked almost as bad as Prodigal Son.

[slikmar]

15 hours ago, Spence said:

 

Did you consider it worth it to watch? 

Yes, but I like movies that can be carried by one or 2 people. Pitt is excellent in this and is able to carry the gravitas of the situation.

[death tribble]

A Stranger in Town An American journalist investigates the death of an American composer in a British village. The resolution is a bit hurried I felt

 

The Small Back Room This is about scientists working on what the Germans are doing after four people are killed most of them children. It seems that there is something about what the Germans are dropping out of airplanes that is fascinating. They go to great lengths to show the defusing process and how difficult it is for even a small device. Quite relevant in the man personal IED age.

 

The Crooked Sky  An investigation into counterfeiting uncovers that radio operators for an airline are being used to smuggle in bad notes which are distributed through a gambling club.

 

Down Among the Z Men This is a film version of the Goon Show and is sadly not very good

 

Piccadilly Third Stop This is about robbing a foreign embassy's safe and the escape and entrance through the underground.

 

You Must be Joking 5 military personnel one of whom is an American are set off on a scavenger hunt to get specific British items and bring them back to a military base. The test has been devised by Terry Thomas's major who is a psychiatrist. They must start in a maze which one of them is trapped in for the bulk of the film whilst the others escape and start causing havoc in a television studio and at Lloyds of London. Directed and written by Michael Winner. 

[death tribble]

The Caribou Trail It is a Randolph Scott Western. Need i say more ?

 

Out of the Clouds A fictionalised look behind the scenes at Heathrow in the 1950s with aircraft problems and passengers and flightcrew and land based personnel having problems.

 

Whatever Happened to Aunt Alice A widow begins befriending old ladies and using them as companions before bilking them of their money and killing them,,. But the latest one is a tough cookie who is looking into her friend's disappearance. First time I watched this it repeated the last reel so you missed the ending.

 

The Night Strangler The second of the Kolchak films. In Seattle someone is killing young women and taking some of their blood. Kolchak investigates and irritates a lot of people while doing so.

 

The Flash season 3 And who is the villain this time around. Another speedster. Oh good grief. By saving his mother the Flash screws up and changes the timeline for the worse. We get the introduction of Killer Frost and Abra Kadabra which makes the villain really good. We also get a return for Gorilla Grodd. The reveal for ho Savitar was a bit of a letdown truth be told but working out how they were going to solve Iris not being killed was good.

 

Edge of Tomorrow Tom Cruise finds himself in the front line fighting aliens and then finds time repeating again and again. This was an interesting take on the whole alien invasion angle and why the aliens are invincible. 

[Spence]

1 hour ago, death tribble said:

Edge of Tomorrow Tom Cruise finds himself in the front line fighting aliens and then finds time repeating again and again. This was an interesting take on the whole alien invasion angle and why the aliens are invincible. 

 

The novel, All You Need Is Kill, is far better.  But that is normal.  For anyone interested, watch the movie, then read the book.  I appreciate that they didn't use the books title, instead they made a movie inspired by the book and didn't claim that they had actually tried to bring the actual book to the screen.

[Spence]

1 hour ago, death tribble said:

The Night Strangler The second of the Kolchak films. In Seattle someone is killing young women and taking some of their blood. Kolchak investigates and irritates a lot of people while doing so.

But? 

That was what Kolchak did.

[slikmar]

Rewatching Tequila Sunrise. You could almost write a cookbook and have these actors (Gibson, Phifer, Julia and Russel) say the lines and it would be good, the fact that the writing is excellent and makes a good Noir type modern (ok, 1988) movie is better.

This brings me to my second thing I saw recently. PBS ran an episode on the actor Raul Julia. Was really good. The first 2 things I actively remember him being in could not be more different - Kiss of the Spider Woman (for which William Hurt won Julia's oscar, and says so himself) and Gumball Rally. During the show we watched, they showed where Julia played the lead in Taming of the Shrew opposite Meryl Streep in a live theater play and later in life (after Adams Family and not long before he died) played Quixote in Man of La Mancha. Dammit, why didnt someone film either of these and put them out on dvd. I would LOVE to see his Man of La Mancha.