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Annael
Elvenhome
Fri, 4:55pm
Post #1 of 13
(6027 views)
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What have you been watching?
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While we wait for the doors to Fiesta to open .. .
Top of my list is "Murderbot." I have some quibbles with how it's being done - Murderbot should be much more obviously a cyborg, for one - but the casting is spot-on and I'm enjoying it. My main criticism is that the episodes are way too short!
Watched "Sirens" on Netflix. I thought it was going to be another of those "oh look at the very rich people with their amazing houses and clothes and cars and see how unhappy they really are" and it was, but the introduction of two sisters who came out of poverty and an abusive/traumatic childhood added a meaningful layer. One sister is what I've heard called "service to self" oriented, while the other is "service to others," and they handle the situation they find themselves in accordingly. It got me musing on how just perhaps, whether someone is essentially "self" or "others" oriented can explain a whole lot about their beliefs and actions.
I'm also watching "Nine Perfect Strangers," where strangers are invited to a "healing retreat" that involves psychedelics but also a great deal of manipulation by the woman in charge, and her motives aren't entirely pure. I just edited a book about the use of psychedelics, particularly psilocybin, for helping folks with PTSD and other major trauma sequelae, which was pretty convincing. But of course a TV drama is going to make it much more - dramatic. Great casts in both seasons.
We saw "Materialists" in the theater. It was better than I expected, not a simple rom-com. I admit to a dislike of Dakota Johnson, mostly because I'm angry about the travesty that was her version of "Persuasion," one of my favorite books, but I have to give her props for her role in this one. The script was a bit glib and predictable but raised some good questions about how we value ourselves and others. Pedro Pascal and Chris Evans were great, of course, when are they not?
Also watched "KPop Demon Hunters." Good fun.
And you?
I am a dreamer of words, of written words.
-- Gaston Bachelard
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NARF and member of Deplorable Cultus since 1967
(This post was edited by Annael on Fri, 4:57pm)
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CuriousG
Gondolin
Fri, 5:28pm
Post #2 of 13
(5891 views)
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Rich shows vs poor shows, and not intentional
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I really liked the 1st season of White Lotus: smart acting, good dialogue, good plot points. Then season #2 was a bit of a yawn (except for a boat scene), and season #3 just bored me to tears, but I kept watching, hoping it was a slow burn, but it was all slow and no burn. I saw nothing interesting or redeeming in S3 and consider it a total waste of time, so I'm done with that series and its bloated reputation.
I watched Nine Perfect Strangers, and it started off well. I think towards the end I just didn't care that much about the characters as I had initially. I'd still recommend it to people, however. Since you bring up psychedelics: I saw an interesting Netflix documentary made by Cary Grant's daughter that went into some detail on his LSD therapy to overcome past traumas--Cary Grant had trauma?!?!?! How could anyone that cool and debonair and successful have trauma?! -- but he did, and though the psychedelics wiped him out for a day at a time, he did resolve lifelong issues in his old age, so while merely a data point of one and not a scientific study, it was interesting.
Various people encouraged me to watch Call the Midwife. I'm certainly not in the demographic for it, and while I don't tune in for the endless births and maternity checkups (though they're a refreshing change from crime shows' endless crimes), I feel like it's Ted Lasso without the humor (and soccer/football), meaning that it's about people with hearts of gold who try to do the right thing, while they also have various flaws, so it's a good watch when the daily news is full of people of the opposite character makeup. The social history is fun too: a husband in the birthing room?!!??! And my jaw dropped open when a smart, glamorous, earnest saleswomen made a convincing sales pitch to the poor women of the East End on all the benefits of buying baby formula instead of breast feeding.
Special mention to Trixie (Helen George), who will fight anyone's cause fearlessly and energetically, and Sister Julienne (Jenny Agutter--I've loved her since Logan's Run), whose voice is mesmerizing, whose aura is inspiring, and who should run for president: strong, kind, wise, heart in the right place, never loud, always respectful and showing self-control. The subtlety of the show is amazing: her attention to a dying baby in a hospital was so heartfelt that I had to replay the scene a few times, it was so sad but it was an epic act of kindness, but it sorta flew by me without dramatic camera shots or dramatic shouts or dramatic speeches. The writing and tone are remarkably consistent across seasons, and they keep coming up with new characters to have issues along with babies, but I don't feel it's overboard like a soap opera. Yeah, I'm hooked. (If Sister Julienne's evil twin ever shows up with evil inheritance plans to turn the convent into a brothel-casino, I'll know it's gone to the soaps.)
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Otaku-sempai
Elvenhome
Fri, 7:15pm
Post #3 of 13
(5569 views)
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My spouse was curious about this so we watched it on Netfilx last night. We were honestly surprised at how good it was! The high-concept pitch for K-Pop Demon Hunters must have been something like: Jem meets Sailor Moon.
“Hell hath no fury like that of the uninvolved.” - Tony Isabella
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Annael
Elvenhome
Fri, 7:38pm
Post #4 of 13
(5499 views)
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I've loved Jenny Agutter since "Logan's Run" also
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I'm also a big fan of Sean Pertwee, and he and Agutter did a film of 'Silas Marner" together with Ben Kingsley as the titular character. Excellent, if you ever come across it.
(Confession: I do get her mixed up with Jenny Seagrove; I was going to recomment "Local Hero" also, but it wasn't her!)
I'll look for that documentary about Cary Grant.
I am a dreamer of words, of written words.
-- Gaston Bachelard
* * * * * * * * * *
NARF and member of Deplorable Cultus since 1967
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CuriousG
Gondolin
Fri, 8:17pm
Post #5 of 13
(5411 views)
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I think Logan's Run deserves more love as a classic
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especially with the close parallels in "Last Day. Renew. Carousel" with Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery," the same mindless human sacrifice that everyone agrees to because everyone agrees to it, and it's anathema to even think of alternatives.
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cats16
Gondolin
Sat, 12:15am
Post #7 of 13
(5182 views)
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I've been very bad at keeping up with posting this thread.
I'm hoping to catch Wes Anderson's latest, The Phoenician Scheme, this weekend. I haven't seen The Materialists, though I'm also not the biggest Johnson fan and agree about that Persuasion adaptation.
Recently I watched -
Scarecrow (1973) starting Al Pacino and Gene Hackman. I had heard of this one for sometime but never had the chance to see it. Really enjoyed it, especially for the unexpected Pacino performance. Hackman, like in most of his roles, feels like a semi-rabid dog that could attack at any moment, or maybe run up and quietly lick your face too, you're never quite sure.
An Autumn's Tale (1987) - This is a very cute little New York City movie from the late 80s that captures an interesting era of the city, warts and all. It's a romcom with Chow Yun-fat in a very fun, against type kind of role. Highly recommend if you can find it, it's a bit quirky but in a fun way.
The Brutalist (2024) - I agree with many folks who have said that the first half is stronger than the second. The music is very evocative in a way that you feel more than you can really articulate. Beautiful to look at, though I think the first hour or so hit a mark the rest couldn't quite maintain.
Join us every weekend in the Hobbit movie forum for this week's CHOW (Chapter of the Week) discussion!
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Lily Fairbairn
Gondolin
Sat, 2:51pm
Post #9 of 13
(5109 views)
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I've always enjoyed this movie not just for story and characters, which are quality, but for the settings. It was filmed in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, where my husband and I lived for many years, including a scene set on the front steps of the building where he worked.
Where now the horse and the rider? Where is the horn that was blowing?
Where is the helm and the hauberk, and the bright hair flowing?
Where is the hand on the harpstring, and the red fire glowing?
Where is the spring and the harvest and the tall corn growing?
They have passed like rain on the mountain, like a wind in the meadow;
The days have gone down in the West behind the hills into shadow....
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CuriousG
Gondolin
Sat, 10:01pm
Post #10 of 13
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I was dazzled by the waterfall & steps setting. Seemed so cool and futuristic in the 1970s! Then I learned it wasn't a movie set but a real place in Texas. I mean, if it hadn't been used in Logan's Run, I'm sure Peter Jackson would have found some way to put it in Rivendell or something.
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Lily Fairbairn
Gondolin
Sun, 2:29pm
Post #11 of 13
(1164 views)
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Yes, it's a lovely place, especially for being right downtown.
Where now the horse and the rider? Where is the horn that was blowing?
Where is the helm and the hauberk, and the bright hair flowing?
Where is the hand on the harpstring, and the red fire glowing?
Where is the spring and the harvest and the tall corn growing?
They have passed like rain on the mountain, like a wind in the meadow;
The days have gone down in the West behind the hills into shadow....
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Meneldor
Doriath
Sun, 6:26pm
Post #12 of 13
(796 views)
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Local theater group did an amazing production packed with lots of laughs, dancing, cute songs, great costumes, and manic energy, and that was just Princess Fiona. Really, the whole cast was great, even the little 4 year old boys who didn't have any lines but hit their marks, danced like they should, and gestured theatrically on cue. It was a non stop riot. The standing ovation was well deserved.
They that go down to the sea in ships, that do business in great waters, these see the works of the Lord, and His wonders in the deep. -Psalm 107
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Silvered-glass
Nargothrond
Sun, 10:04pm
Post #13 of 13
(772 views)
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Unsurprisingly, I watched some more Kamen Rider.
Kamen Rider Den-O could be called Demonic Possession: The Comedy (now with time travel!). It is a very good comedy too, with some particularly likable main characters. It is all very funny until it isn't. During the first pianist episode I noticed that the tone had drifted away from comedy and the story had become quite sad, but it didn't matter because the the story and the characters were just so good. And it's not like the comedy has gone away entirely even after the more serious and sadder aspects of the plot start to get more apparent. The beginning episodes where the characters are introduced are a little on the weaker side and the ending isn't particularly memorable, but overall I find Den-O a very strong entry that was fun to watch all the way through.
Den-O also finds the time to explore some surprisingly mature issues but keeps it tasteful. The time travel plot might seem like it isn't thought properly in every respect, but actually it is. The true answer to how this works is something you might not expect and most people probably don't realize, because some lateral thinking is required to figure it out.
Kamen Rider Kabuto starts out on a serious note, with human organization fighting an alien invasion. But not to worry, the unusual individual known as Tendou Souji is here. His name is shown on screen in kanji at one point. If you choose to watch this series, I recommend pausing the episode and checking out what his name means, if you know how. One of his catch phrases is translated in English as him claiming to walk the Path of Heaven (tendou), but I think there is reason to think that that isn't what he really says. Japanese is a language that enables many puns...
Kabuto soon veers off the usual path with characters that are more interested in personal issues such as gourmet cooking than fighting their version of Invasion of the Body Snatchers. In the middle part of the story there is this sense that the aliens may actually be doing pretty well for themselves behind the scenes because the supposed heroes are more interested in comic trivialities than saving the world. Unfortunately I didn't find the attempts at comedy all that funny, which is a big point against Kabuto.
The general theme of Kabuto is that the characters are focused on themselves and their own excellence, and I think this is by design, even if it doesn't make for a particularly likable cast. Tendou Souji is merely an extreme example of this who makes most of the others look almost normal.
The problem with Kabuto is that eventually there comes the creeping realization that the aliens, despite their many advantages, have no chance against the OP main character even when he isn't particularly trying. This kind of kills the dramatic tension, and the comedy isn't good enough to compensate. (Kamen Rider Black RX had a bit of the same issue towards the end, but executed much better.)
Also, I noticed that some of the absolute worst plot points in the later-made Kamen Rider Gaim (which I'd seen earlier because you supposedly could watch Kamen Rider seasons in any order with very limited exceptions) were meant to reference Kabuto (and Kamen Rider Decade, which I will discuss on a general level later on in this post). The thing is, with the general silliness level of Kabuto, something that was so terrible in Gaim didn't really stand out so much in its originating series, with Lord Tendou Souji.
Kamen Rider Kiva is an interesting one, with its strong focus on romance. (Twilight appears to be a major influence.) The power of love could even be called the main theme of Kiva, but that doesn't make the story all fluff and sugar - far from it. There is a hurtful and destructive side to romance, and sometimes passion isn't enough to triumph over obstacles, and these are demonstrated abundantly in Kiva. The world-building in Kiva is pretty dark too, even if the story doesn't really dwell on that all that much.
The story follows two parallel (and sometimes intersecting) plot lines, one in a 2008 world (where the main hero lives) and another in a 1986 world. Both have triangle dramas with paranormal romance and characters trying to fight monsters that are clearly based on vampires but walk about in broad daylight and are immune to the traditional vampire weaknesses, which makes channeling your inner Buffy the Vampire Slayer not particularly effective even when you try really hard... Internal not-vampire politics with their strongly medieval flavor turn out very relevant to the plot and add to the overall interest.
The story kind of falls apart in the last few episodes though and becomes the equivalent of a B-movie, which is unfortunate. I get the feeling that there were late script changes, and those then necessitated further changes without the time to think them through.
Kiva has notably good fight scenes too with a lot of attention given to monster design. There is a bit too much stock CGI in some scenes and a magic item that appears later on feels contrived in more ways than one, but overall the battles are well-choreographed and entertaining and counterbalance the romance content nicely. The fight scene against the final boss was clearly rushed though just like the corresponding script was rushed.
Kamen Rider Decade follows a likable group of characters as they travel through different parallel worlds and have an effect on them. This is supposed to save their own world, somehow. So they were promised. I'm reminded of Sliders.
What follows is a nostalgia trip into previous Kamen Rider series, but it's not quite authentic nostalgia, as all the worlds the main characters visit have various significant and fundamental differences to their original TV appearances so that they really can't be called the same worlds and also don't really spoil the original series plots. For example, imagine the World of Kabuto with no Tendou Souji or the World of Ryuki without the main villain who was responsible for the existence of the plot... The story doesn't spell out these divergences though but leaves them as an exercise to the viewer.
The loose structure allowed the writers the opportunity to include some unusually political episodes. A highlight I found particularly memorable and thought-provoking without lecturing to the viewer was the part about the World of Diend: a beautiful and idyllic world in which the people are very kind... and it turns out to be a dystopia. Then a few episodes later, near the end of the TV series we get an extremely unsubtle Nazi metaphor pair of episodes which feels like it could be a parody of American TV writing, though it's hard to say with that degree of badness. Most dimensional travel episodes are enjoyable though. The problems arise when in the last six episodes the series remembers that it's supposed to have a plot and that there is foreshadowing that needs to be resolved.
The ending again is the weakest point in the show. Tying up all the foreshadowing into a coherent whole after the random travel episodes must have been hard and doesn't really work in every respect. It doesn't help that the middle two of the last six episodes are taken by the Nazi analogues in a diversion that doesn't really matter. Decade also has a weird thing in that while it's about parallel universes, it also shows itself to have parallel universes to its own story, and that's why there are different endings around, for the TV series and in movies. I think the original TV series ending is the weakest of them all.
I think giving it some thought makes Decade's plot better, but for proper emotional closure you need the movies.
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