Movie/TV recommendations

[Ben X]

I'm with BigJKO on Snowpiercer - brutal, inventive, loads of great performances (except Ewen Brenner, who was miscast), looks great. But yeah, the pacing slows to a crawl occasionally and it doesn't always make total sense.

 

Whoah there, which Riddick are we talking about here?

 

I assume the second one (after Pitch Black but before Riddick), which was messy and overblown but lots of fun. I'd watch that again before Interstellar. (Riddick was awful though, and I didn't love Pitch Black as much as most seem to.) Titan AE is disappointingly cheesy and clunky whenever human characters are involved.

 

I also haven't watched Dune, but it's on my Netflix backlog along with that Jodorowsky's Dune documentary.

[Twig]

I actually kinda like Titan AE. ):

 

I mean it's not GREAT or anything but I enjoyed the ride.

[Patrick R]

Interstellar is a good movie. Bit schizophrenic, but the touches of vestigial Spielberg balance out a lot Nolan's bad character tendencies while Nolan's economy and disdain for traditional world building help minimize the bloated bullshit that tends to overrun Hollywood movies like this. Fun movie, well-paced, great SFX.

[TheLastBaron]

I saw Birdman and I enjoyed it. I don't really know what else to say because I think it's the kind of movie people should go into completely cold. It's a shame it's not playing in more places.

[Ben X]

Interstellar is now getting criticised for its sound mix.

 

I had no issues with the sound, personally. There was one scene where a couple of lines of inconsequential dialogue were drowned out by the score, which I took to be an interesting choice. The score can get noticeably loud, but not uncomfortably so.

 

This story reminds me of when a load of "anonymous industry people" said the Hobbit 48fps footage looked crap, and when cinemas had to put signs up reminding people that Terrence Malick films can be slow. I hope this isn't the beginnings of a trend towards wide-release movies doing anything different being berated by critics and anonymous industry people, and complained about by mouth-breathing movie-goers.

[Merus]

Holy shit, the last episode of Last Week Tonight.

 

I mean, it was already a great episode in a series that has been mostly pretty great, but I have no idea how they managed this:

 

[Nappi]

I found Interstellar beautiful, but flawed, but entertaining. I was surprised, considering the subject matter, how unsuccessful the movie was at informing the viewers how much time has passed between the scenes.

 

Oh, and Mackenzie Foy's performance as young Murph was stellar.

 

Regarding the ending:

I have always wondered what self-serious Steven Moffat's Doctor Who episode with an astronomical budget would look like.

[Twig]

Holy shit, the last episode of Last Week Tonight.

 

I mean, it was already a great episode in a series that has been mostly pretty great, but I have no idea how they managed this:

Yeah that was incredible. Also I'm so sad there's no more John Oliver this year. ):

[syntheticgerbil]

Holy shit, the last episode of Last Week Tonight.

 

I mean, it was already a great episode in a series that has been mostly pretty great, but I have no idea how they managed this:

Hah it was good but I couldn't stop cringing at the bad Simpsons animation.

[Patrick R]

Interstellar is now getting criticised for its sound mix.

 

I had no issues with the sound, personally. There was one scene where a couple of lines of inconsequential dialogue were drowned out by the score, which I took to be an interesting choice. The score can get noticeably loud, but not uncomfortably so.

 

This story reminds me of when a load of "anonymous industry people" said the Hobbit 48fps footage looked crap, and when cinemas had to put signs up reminding people that Terrence Malick films can be slow. I hope this isn't the beginnings of a trend towards wide-release movies doing anything different being berated by critics and anonymous industry people, and complained about by mouth-breathing movie-goers.

 

Worth noting that interesting sound mix choices can end up being horrible sound mix choices when you're in a shitty theater setting. When Dark Knight Rises came out, Bane's dialogue was a real problem if you saw it in a theater with less than optimal sound. Not all multiplexes are created equal on that front. Christopher Nolan knows these movies are going to play everywhere, so while it's an interesting choice to mix dialogue at lower ranges of audible, it's probably not a prudent one unless the dialogue is genuinely unimportant.

 

My hearing loss means I miss dialogue all the time in theater settings, so I can't really judge either way. I will say I had no idea what the closing lines of the movie were.

 

 

I found Interstellar beautiful, but flawed, but entertaining. I was surprised, considering the subject matter, how unsuccessful the movie was at informing the viewers how much time has passed between the scenes.

I honestly thought this was one of the film's strengths. The lack of establishing shots gave it a great momentum. Didn't miss them at all.

[Ben X]

Hah it was good but I couldn't stop cringing at the bad Simpsons animation.

 

Aw, cut them some slack on this one, it's not like they were able to take months doing it! I thought it was pretty impressive considering,,,

[gregbrown]

Caught SNOWPIERCER, and didn't like it at all. Way too cornball for me, which made everything fall flat (except for Swinton's performance and the school car sequence, which both embraced it).

[agorman]

I saw both Birdman and The Congress.

 

Man I really liked Birdman a lot. I thought the acting was just phenomenal and loved the camera work going on in it, and overall just thought it was a fantastic movie. 

 

Conversely I really really really didn't like The Congress. I liked the animation style, and thought it had some great visuals, but thought the movie really was just a mess. The beginning dragged on for ages, the movie tried to have so many different themes and layed them on all so thick (Oh the big mega movie studio is called Miramount! Get it??), and really failed to create believable characters or relationships (at least in my eyes). Has anyone else seen it? 

[Patrick R]

So I just watched an incredibly scary short film from 1999 called Outer Space:

 

 

It's avant garde, but visceral. It's like a Stan Brakhage nightmare. Watch with headphones!

 

EDIT: As Bolegium noted, this has lots of flashing imagery, so epilepsy warning.

[Bolegium]

So I just watched an incredibly scary short film from 1999 called Outer Space:

 

That was great! Should be noted that it contains flashing imagery.

 

Since short films have been brought up, I saw Watchtower of Turkey by Leonardo Dalessandri.

 

[Erkki]

It's avant garde, but visceral. It's like a Stan Brakhage nightmare. Watch with headphones!

Hmm... I could not watch that to the end. With headphones I would have been able to watch even less. Flashing images are one thing, but I have a really low tolerance for jittery sound, and if someone uses that intentionally for 10 minutes straight, they can fuck right off.

[toblix]

I watched Alien today, for the first time – I realized as I watched it – in over ten years.

• It was the director's cut, which I don't exactly know what entails.
• The cutting between fake rubber Bilbo head and prosthetic head was like totally jarring.
• There was much more ass-crack and crotch in the final parts than I remembered.
• I may not have paid enough attention, but I didn't exactly catch what happened in the parts before Ripley escaped in the pod. Why did she go down into the "kill me" room? Why did she try to disable the auto destruct?
• The danging milk-mouth head fight scene was ten thousand times more awesome than I remember.
• There was much less beard than I thought I remembered. Such clean-shaven.

[Brannigan]

Alien not Aliens!

 

as far as I remember the kill me bit is director's cut...dont remember what else

[toblix]

Damn it, I'm sure I double checked!

[Ben X]

Toblix - a weird choice to watch the director's cut after not having seen the film in so long. What made you go for that?

 

 

Going to put in a recommendation for watching Sleepy Hollow (the TV series) for Halloween.  We did a watch party for it at a friend's house last night and saw the first 3 episodes.  Our friend is a big fan of it, and was frustrated that no one he knew was watching it.  It's actually pretty good.  First two episodes were much better than the third, but I'll assume the third was the anomaly for now. 

 

Bjorn. did you keep watching this? Did it pick up again? I really enjoyed the pilot and the 2nd ep was also cool. Haven't seen the 3rd ep yet and am hoping it doesn't pull an Arrow...

[toblix]

Toblix - a weird choice to watch the director's cut after not having seen the film in so long. What made you go for that?

 

Oh, that's weird? I always assumed the DC of any movie is the best version, closest to the original vision or whatever? DID I MAKE A MISTAKE?

[Twig]

I always assume that too.

 

Besides I'm not about to watch a dumb movie twice in quick succession, once without the extra content and then once with it.

[Erkki]

Saw 3 movies in the past few days:

 

Under the Skin -- I somewhat liked it, but I didn't really understand what the message was.

 

Interstellar -- great soundtrack!

 

Jodorowsky's Dune -- one of the most inspiring movies I have seen. And wow, Jodorowsky looks much younger than 84.

[tegan]

The director's cut of Aliens is terrible.

 

The "assembly cut of Alien 3 saves the movie, though!

[Ben X]

Oh, that's weird? I always assumed the DC of any movie is the best version, closest to the original vision or whatever? DID I MAKE A MISTAKE?

 

Sadly, you did. Scott only made the director's cut because he was asked to for the DVD boxset release because all the other films had one. He considers the theatrical cut the real director's cut and superior to the supposed DC.

 

Disagree with Tegan on the Aliens DC, though. Apart from the

pre-infestation Hadley's Hope scenes

which utterly kill the build-up of the first half, the rest of the additions either massively improve the film or are at least extra bits of cool. It's seen by a lot of people as the canon version.