ysbreker

Movie/TV recommendations

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I enjoyed Iron Man 1 and 2 and The Avengers, and I hoped I'd enjoy this.

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I felt like the characterization was done great! I mean for me it pretty much carried the movie apart from the comedy. Those weirdos were just so much fun to be around, even if their constant ''I'm explaining who I am and what my motivations are'' got a bit grating.

 

It had downsides for sure (Ronan wanted.. what exactly? Why?? What?). And for me, not all the tonal shifts worked all that well and I actually felt it needed to lay off the jokes for just a second to let the more dramatic stuff breathe a little. 

But, i dunno, I had a jolly time at the cinema with it. 

 

EDIT: Oh! And I also didn't like that new Captain America movie. For me it was a soulless assembly line product with no real personality or creative vision driving it. It had me worried that this is what we're in for with these movies now, but Guardians is so the opposite of that. It had Gunn's fingerprints all over it. 

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The first two episodes of the new season of Gravity Falls were both fantastic. There's some stuff in there that I'm surprised that they were allowed to get away with in a Disney cartoon, too.

 

Zombie Soos is best Soos.

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I don't see why not liking Captain America would mean he shouldn't have gone to see this.

 

Well, what I enjoyed about Captain America was diametrically opposed to what I remember Ben's comments were - that the action scenes were/were not entertaining - and then Ben's criticisms of this movie were, again, diametrically opposed to my experience. It also sounds like he didn't care for Iron Man 3, either, which had uneven points but a lot to recommend it. I'm pretty sure I have at least some taste at this point, so it's not a case of me just being wrong, and I'm going to assume that Ben's not just straight out wrong, so I have to assume that there's something in these movies that ruins them for Ben but not for me, and it seems like it might be a consistent feature of these movies.

 

So yeah, that's why my response was 'why do you keep going to see these'.

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The thing is, I mostly don't think that the Marvel films I don't like are awful - they're well-made and have good stuff in them - so I have hope that the next film will have enough good stuff to be one of the ones I do like. And the stuff that tips them over into meh/no-likey territory for me is basic stuff like dialogue, characterisation, structure, action choreography and direction (varying from film to film), not MCU specific stuff, so for me to avoid all of them because I didn't like some of them would be the same as never watching any movies again because I didn't like some of them.

 

As you mentioned it: Iron Man 3 I enjoyed a lot of, but the villains just didn't work for me in any capacity - the Batman Forever origin, nanobots, THAT element (which I feel like I could have enjoyed but they fumbled it) - and they're a big enough part of the film to take it down a notch. The Marvel films have a real problem with their villians actually - top actors giving good performances in roles that don't make much sense or get a lot to do or integrate very well. Although I felt IM1 & 2 and Avengers overcome that problem enough for me to get over it.

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I'm actually with Ben on this, the second Cap movie was really underwhelming to me for a number of reasons, particularly given how much of a pleasant surprise the first one was for me.  It was fun enough, and I'm glad I watched it for the sake of seeing the whole universe, but it could have been much, much better.  IM3 was the most forgettable of all the IM movies for me. 

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Watched Frances Ha last night.  Opening shots made me remember why people still like NYC.  I worked there for 2 years and lived there for one, and really grew to hate it, so it was nice to be like, "ohhhh right, that's why kid's still want to move there after school."  Also I'm sure it's fun if you can afford it.

 

Movie had some weird parallels to my life:  creative type, working in the entertainment industry in the city, ends of taking a job at Vassar College where both the main women in the film and I went, interacts with students who seem to wonder what you're doing there, having graduated 5 years earlier.  Working through feeling like a failure.

 

I assume because of these weirdly direct parallels that the ending of the film left a bitter taste in my mouth.  Everyone from her life comes to her show and is like you're the best!  It just felt like such an insanely consonant ending for a story that up until then had felt rather real in a narratively ambiguous way.

 

I really liked the friendship, though.  The parallel of them talking in bed in the beginning and end was great.

 

I recommend the film.  Mileage may vary on the ending.

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I'm pretty late to the party, but I just finished watching 'Parks & Recreation' season 2, and thoroughly enjoyed it. Not so much the first season, but I think they got it just right for the second.

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I re-watched Alejandro González Iñárritu's film Biutiful. A powerful and extremely arresting tragic story. I'll never forget it. 

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Well you're in luck, Parks and Rec gets even better from Season 3 to somewhere in 5 I think. It's maybe gotten way too wacky for my tastes, but I still watch every episode religiously.

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Yes, Parks and Rec is brilliant, and gets better and better after the first season.

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I'm pretty late to the party, but I just finished watching 'Parks & Recreation' season 2, and thoroughly enjoyed it. Not so much the first season, but I think they got it just right for the second.

I get what people mean about the first season, but (season one spoiler:)

the six episode build up to taking the cast off Andy's leg is one of my favourite things in all of Parks and Rec. It's such a good joke, from the basic gag to Leslie trying to exploit such a mundane thing politically.

It does get better after series one because they turn the intensity of the characters up, but I think that one joke has a lot of Parks and Rec's heart in it.

(season five spoiler:)

Also, I was oddly happy when Chris and Anne were written out. I always found them both really bland characters, and my mind tended to wander when they were on screen the most. Anne was always bland, and Chris became so intense that "occasional sad clown" seemed the only place left to take the character. I wonder if the rest will seem too cartoony without them, though they seem to have been rounding out Tom Haverford to compensate a little maybe?

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Watched Frances Ha last night.  Opening shots made me remember why people still like NYC.  I worked there for 2 years and lived there for one, and really grew to hate it, so it was nice to be like, "ohhhh right, that's why kid's still want to move there after school."  Also I'm sure it's fun if you can afford it.

 

Movie had some weird parallels to my life:  creative type, working in the entertainment industry in the city, ends of taking a job at Vassar College where both the main women in the film and I went, interacts with students who seem to wonder what you're doing there, having graduated 5 years earlier.  Working through feeling like a failure.

 

I assume because of these weirdly direct parallels that the ending of the film left a bitter taste in my mouth.  Everyone from her life comes to her show and is like you're the best!  It just felt like such an insanely consonant ending for a story that up until then had felt rather real in a narratively ambiguous way.

 

I really liked the friendship, though.  The parallel of them talking in bed in the beginning and end was great.

 

I recommend the film.  Mileage may vary on the ending.

 

No, the movie had pretty much zero parallels to my life and I felt exactly the same way about the ending. Still a good flick despite that...

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Could be interesting. 

 

I think BBC's Dirk Gently series was quite entertaining at times. Stephen Mangan was nothing like I had imagined Dirk Gently to be, but I didn't really mind. I wonder who will get the leading role in the new series. 

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There's an old Dirk Gently series? Ooh, I'll have to watch that at some point. Unless someone tells me it's, like, really bad. Although I watched the H2G2 movie despite that and found it... not as bad as people said.

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Only four eps! I'll definitely watch it then. Why not?! I ask you.

 

Also wow it's pretty recent. I'm amazed I didn't hear of it.

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There's an old Dirk Gently series?

 

I had no idea either! 

 

 

Might still be worth checking out if you are a Douglas Adams fan and don't take adaptations too seriously, I think.

 

Given how Adams approached adapting his own work, I don't think his fans should really take adaptations very seriously.  We can hope for them to be entertaining, but beyond that, violating canon seems to be inherent to the process of his work.

 

At any rate, I'll have to watch the BBC version just to check it out. 

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Yeah it always amazed me how many complaints there were around the H2G2 movie about how different it was to the books. PEOPLE! IGNORANCE! HOW DARE THEY!

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I'm curious how they may pull it off. The series before seemed to really deviate, so I didn't bother.

 

However, I listened to the radio plays this year and they were great and much easier to follow than the books, even though it loses a bit of Douglas Adams' novel pacing. One thing that never quite worked is that they made an attempt to add cell phones to first book, but really didn't make any sense in context with Richard and the answering machine. It'd pretty much have to stay in the era it was created solely because of that one plot point.

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Just saw Boyhood and—boy!—does it have some portrayals of camping in need of critiquing!
 

Not carrying water or hats while hiking in Texas is suicide. I have yet to take enough water on a hike. No primitive camping ground anywhere permits ground fires. My guess is Linklater wants to murder all out-of-state tourists who are charmed by the nature scenes and jump into it without properly preparing.

 

I liked the movie quite a lot! It has that classic Linklater low burning awesomeness.

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