ysbreker

Movie/TV recommendations

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I watched both Seasons of Orange is the New Black while sick the last few weeks. It was very good. That is all.

Oh, Netflix is now recommending The L Word to me.

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I took my wife to see It Follows for her birthday last night and it was pretty good teen horror fun. I was really bothered and distracted by the director's inability to choose a decade to set the movie in, but I'm glad to see the theatres aren't full of a glut of superhero trash the last month or so.

 

The girl that was always eating and falling asleep was comedic gold to me, but I don't think people were paying that much attention to her, no one else was laughing in the theatre.

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So today I checked online to see if tickets to the Sydney premiere (tomorrow night) of It Follows were available (they appeared to be). After a 40 minute walk to the cinema i'm told they were sold out. Their website could do a better job of displaying ticket availability from the outset, rather than making you confirm a purchase before actually showing whether it's sold out or not. I'm looking forward to seeing it eventually, and listening to that Disasterpeace OST!

 

Moving on to tonight, I found out there's a free screening of Paprika at a nearby-ish bar around half an hour after doors opened (but luckily an hour before the screening started). It's been a few years since i've seen the movie, and I go with a friend who hasn't watched it and has only skimmed over the synopsis tonight.

 

It's just as great as I remember it being, and i'm surprised at all the little details i'm picking up, and how exciting and disturbing and lovely it still is, even after multiple viewings.

 

I love Parpika, in case that wasn't obvious enough.

 

It seems like there have been/will be monthly free screenings of anime movies at that bar. I missed out on Tekkon Kinkreet and Spriggan which were the last two sessions. The location is Knox Street Bar in Sydney, and the screenings are on the evening of every second Tuesday of the month.

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I just watched The Babadook and I deeply regret it.  It was viscerally unpleasant.

 

I mean it was a good movie, I can see why friends who love horror movies really enjoyed it but god. I do not handle horror well.

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I just watched The Babadook and I deeply regret it.  It was viscerally unpleasant.

 

I mean it was a good movie, I can see why friends who love horror movies really enjoyed it but god. I do not handle horror well.

 

I think I know what you mean. I am a huge fan of that movie but even in its slow moments basically every part of it was hugely uncomfortable. I'd have to give huge props to the actors for that reason alone. The two lead actors echo Wendy Torrence from The Shining only they feel like that during almost the whole film rather than near the end when Jack's breakdown finally becomes too apparent to ignore.

Every bit of that film feels like a more unrelenting riff off of Tim Burton's usual schtick.

I think what impresses me most though is how seamlessly the transition goes 

between the mother and the son being the audiences' viewpoint characters.

I don't think I've ever seen a character shift from sympathetic to adversary as convincingly even when it's clearly telegraphed through the story.

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I saw It Follows yesterday. Soundtrack was indeed awesome, although the cinema I went to fucks every movie up a bit by turning it too loud and this was no exception. Had to cover my ears in the beginning until I got used to it. Also, the movie wasn't half-bad for a horror movie. I'm not sure I'd give any horror movie made after The Shining more than 7/10, but It Follows gets that much for sure.

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It's so weird that people put it like that. Like the fuzzy chronology wasn't totally intentional. I loved that, it added to the dreamy feel.

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Agreed, the time period displacement made me uncomfortable at first but I rationalised that the point of it (and it may not have been) was that we tend to immediately contextualise something like this by understanding the era it was set in.

 

So, if the backdrop had been the sixties then we would go 'ah right, this is what the film is trying to say about sexuality' or any other decade for that matter. By having it exist in an other dimension (I think 'A Serious Man' did something like that for similar reasons) it makes it harder to pin down. It is also another reason I would like to hear the director's opinion on all this.

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It's so weird that people put it like that. Like the fuzzy chronology wasn't totally intentional. I loved that, it added to the dreamy feel.

 

No, I know it was intentional (as in they intentionally did not make a decision) because I had to look up later what was going on with the time period and they purposefully made it non specific. I suppose that's fine except the movie had multiple scenes where the technology was the centerpiece, becoming incredibly distracting in the process. If visuals and set dressing are something you look for in movies, then in many ways they failed to create a world for me because of this.

 

So we have two major scenes with an e-reader, multiple old TVs with wood paneling, a scene where an old TV is sitting on top of larger old TV while the teens are watching it, a scene with a cell phone, a scene with an old corded landline, multiple older model cars besides a few background past decade ones that I initially chalked up to budget, and a climax involving a bunch of of 70s-80s appliances lined up around a swimming pool.

 

But really the TVs were the main distraction. They seem to have found a nice stockpile of a variety of old models and stuck them in almost every room available in every house. I was constantly trying to see if the film wanted to say something about TV or the old movies they were all showing or if it was supposed to be showing some kind of extravagant life in the 80s. Certainly having that many TVs decades ago wasn't cheap.

 

Anyway I still enjoyed It Follows a lot, just the time period was a major distraction for me. Should have just set it in the 70s or 80s and I think it would have been fine.

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The time period thing didn't even conciously register for me during watching. Weird. Although I remember thinking that the e-reader was weird.

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I know I'm super LTTP with this, BUT I CANNOT HANDLE HOW GREAT THE END OF LEGEND OF KORRA IS. I AM SO GODDAMN HAPPY AND IT WAS SO CUTE AND SINCERE AND PERFECT AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

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I've been making my way through Louie Season 4, and man I can't sing my praises of this show enough. In particular, I just got through the two-episode arc "Into The Woods." The episodes focus on the time Louie smoked pot when he was younger, which he flashes back to after catching his daughter smoking. These were two of the most powerful episodes of television, for me personally, that I've seen in a while. The details of my own experience are different, but the depiction of being 14-15 years old, getting involved with people and things that caused me to make decisions that hurt my relationship with people that loved me, and cared about me at that age was incredibly potent.

The part with the science teacher in the principle's office was incredibly difficult to watch[\spoiler]

 

Man what a great show.

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Is that the bit where Mako bravely sacrifices himself after being given nothing to do that season, except of course he's going to survive because this show doesn't have the balls to have a character actually sacrifice themselves? Or the bit where Korra decided she was all about mercy now that she'd had a bad day, like some white boy saying that he understands rape now because his email got hacked into? Or the bit where Korra and Asami held hands after the minimum possible setup of a romantic relationship?

 

I had a lot of problems with Korra.

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I had a lot of problems with Korra.

 

I wrote a couple spoiler paragraphs in rebuttal with much more to go, but then I realized that I really don't care to debate. While I'll admit that some elements are problematic with what you mentioned, I also think that they're not all that inconsistent with the rest of the series. I also think that a romantic relationship doesn't need all that much "setup", the personal affection was signaled enough for me to find it believable and I'm happy to celebrate that it did happen instead of leaning on the problematic in other ways anime/cartoon conventions that could have led to

Mako and Korra getting back together, which was all but threatened in the final scenes but didn't actually happen and thank god for that.

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Is that the bit where Mako bravely sacrifices himself after being given nothing to do that season, except of course he's going to survive because this show doesn't have the balls to have a character actually sacrifice themselves? Or the bit where Korra decided she was all about mercy now that she'd had a bad day, like some white boy saying that he understands rape now because his email got hacked into? Or the bit where Korra and Asami held hands after the minimum possible setup of a romantic relationship?

 

I had a lot of problems with Korra.

 

Due to the number of characters and the length of each season, none of the characters got "enough" air-time, in my opinion.

 

Characters have sacrificed themselves many times in Korra.. and even in A:TLA as well. Jet sacrificed himself in A:TLA (it was the first death of a named character in the show, I think?), Tarrlok sacrificed himself at the end of season 1 of Korra (in a murder-suicide of two brothers, no less), Hiroshi Sato sacrificed himself at the end of Korra season 4, etc.

 

Season 4 of Korra spans multiple years. Korra went through some serious development during that time - I find it hard to think of her mercy as forced when it was something that other people have been trying to teach her for years. I don't think the portrayal of her actions is perfect, but I don't see it as a very big issue either.

 

If you re-watch Korra seasons 3 and 4 there is quite a bit of romantic build-up between Korra and Asami (although they still didn't get as much air-time together as I'd have wished, just like most other characters.) It's kind of easy to miss if you only expect heterosexual relationships to happen though. The end of season 4 is the *beginning* of their romantic relationship, and even though the network didn't allow an actual kiss, there are so many visual and musical callbacks to previous instances of kisses in that scene (even within the same episode!) that it does the job well enough, I think.

 

Not sure if you've read Bryan Konietzko's thoughts on the end scene: http://bryankonietzko.tumblr.com/post/105916338157/korrasami-is-canon-you-can-celebrate-it-embrace

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While I'll admit that some elements are problematic with what you mentioned, I also think that they're not all that inconsistent with the rest of the series.

 

We're not in disagreement there.

 

 

Due to the number of characters and the length of each season, none of the characters got "enough" air-time, in my opinion.

 

 

I think this is the root of most of my problems with the series, because I know they're capable of writing interesting, multi-faceted characters, it's just that they had way too much going on so everyone got short shrift.

 

But I'm happy not to get into it again, this is a thread about recommendations, after all.

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I've been watching Supernatural.

 

When does it get good?

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I've been watching Supernatural.

 

When does it get good?

 

Season 3-ish? If memory serves.

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Okay. I just started season two.

 

To be clear I'm not finding it unenjoyable. It's just kind of... it takes itself far more seriously than I think it's earned the right, if that makes sense. Usually when I'm watching something like this it embraces the cheesiness of it all, and so far it's just cheesy without really acknowledging it, besides a few choice moments.

 

Also goddamn I hope they get a third buddy to pal around with at some point. I don't care who it is. Bring back Missouri, she was awesome.

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Okay. I just started season two.

To be clear I'm not finding it unenjoyable. It's just kind of... it takes itself far more seriously than I think it's earned the right, if that makes sense. Usually when I'm watching something like this it embraces the cheesiness of it all, and so far it's just cheesy without really acknowledging it, besides a few choice moments.

Also goddamn I hope they get a third buddy to pal around with at some point. I don't care who it is. Bring back Missouri, she was awesome.

Literally both these things happen, so yeah, you may well enjoy it a lot later down the line. What I will say, though, is that my personal enjoyment of Supernatural definitely fell after season... five? I think? There are still good episodes here and there thereafter but the arcs didn't interest me (never the show's strong suit anyway) and it all felt a bit worn out.

Basically I think it has a very good middle of its run, but it takes a while to find itself and then later on it becomes a little tired and full of retreading of the same ground. I don't often recommend this for modern TV, but I think Supernatural is definitely one of those shows that you could get everything you want out of just watching a "best of" list. As long as you either saw or were told about major continuity points along the way.

Disclaimer: I haven't seen the most recent one or two seasons so if they've suddenly gotten great again I wouldn't know it.

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I've been making my way through Louie Season 4, and man I can't sing my praises of this show enough. In particular, I just got through the two-episode arc "Into The Woods." The episodes focus on the time Louie smoked pot when he was younger, which he flashes back to after catching his daughter smoking. These were two of the most powerful episodes of television, for me personally, that I've seen in a while. The details of my own experience are different, but the depiction of being 14-15 years old, getting involved with people and things that caused me to make decisions that hurt my relationship with people that loved me, and cared about me at that age was incredibly potent.

The part with the science teacher in the principle's office was incredibly difficult to watch[\spoiler]

 

Man what a great show.

 

I just finished Season 4 yesterday and I agree it was excellent. Some really funny moments (I loved pretty much every scene with Patricia) but also some great storytelling, social commentary and good old fashioned absurdity.  

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It was a bit of a mess. Enjoyable, but hardly good and oftentimes tiring with all that was going on. A sad swan song for Whedon.

 

I've seen others espousing this opinion and I must admit to being slightly surprised. I wasn't exactly blown away IGN.com by the film but I didn't have any problems with it, other than that it wasn't the first Avengers. I don't think I ever imagined it would be, though, that was such lightning in a bottle.

 

I'm not sure whether I'm the one off base with my reaction or whether everyone else just had much higher expectations.

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So in other superhero movie news, DC unveiled what Jared Leto will look like as The Joker for Suicide Squad and I guess his origin is that he falls into a vat of Marilyn Manson CDs in this one because jesus christ.

 

 

 

 

 

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