ysbreker

Movie/TV recommendations

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Wait, I've forgotten about this. Did you meet Wenders and tried to punch him?

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The group photo has been cancelled, I'll have to do the punching avoidance at the main event then.

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Wow! Toni Erdmann is my favorite movie of the year, and one which instantly felt both like a timeless classic and very timely. But I didn't expect it to snag so many awards (almost all it was nominated for): best screenwriter, actor, actress, director & film. I think it deserves these awards, but I feel kind of sad for the other films (of which I've seen only some).

 

(Wim Wenders was not punched, didn't even get close enough)

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Coherence is a movie about a group of people who are so destroyed by paranoia and the fear of the Other that they create the worst possible universe with no way of turning back.

 

Maybe felt a bit relevant in a different way this viewing.

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14 hours ago, Patrick R said:

 

Coherence is a movie about a group of people who are so destroyed by paranoia and the fear of the Other that they create the worst possible universe with no way of turning back.

 

Maybe felt a bit relevant in a different way this viewing.

 

 

Oh man I liked that movie a lot. A rare sighting of Nicholas 'hey that's Xander from Buffy' Brendon in a good film!

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ICLAUDIUS from BBC, probably the finest drama ever centered on the life of Emperor Iclaudius as he lives through the reign of Augustus, Tiberius and Caligula. A truly turbulent time.

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I watched the White Rabbit Project over the last few days.  It's a Netflix original series that stars the former Mythbusters "build team" of Grant Imahara, Kari Byron, and Tory Belleci.  It vaguely resembles Mythbusters in that it investigates stories and ideas in a pseudo-scientific way but I'd call it more documentary than anything.  Each episode looks at 6 ideas or concepts for a given topic (such as Crazy WW2 Weapons or Tech We Love To Hate) then scores them based on 3 criteria and ranks them.  Many of the 6 are historical and their discussion is just a presentation of their information.  A few are recreated or turned into experiments but with much less explanation than Mythbusters and far less detail.  The historical aspect of it was actually a lot more interesting in some of the cases (such as a British plan to sabotage Hitler by lacing his food with estrogen).  The rapport between the three is about the same as on Mythbusters but frankly I found the show overall less entertaining and far more subdued.

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My partner and I have been avidly watching Terrace House, which is a long-running Japanese reality TV show that Netflix are showing worldwide for a couple of seasons. The format is basically The Real World - six young people living in a shared house, filmed constantly, but without any competitive element or other restrictions on their lives.

 

I never normally watch reality TV, but this is really enjoyable. Partly this might be down to my fascination with the cultural difference between British/American shows and the Japanese equivalent. It's not exactly relaxed, but the whole thing feels really good-natured - there's never any sign that it's about to descend into a drunken screaming match, like on The Real Housewives or Big Brother. You don't get the sense that the producers are trying to catch people at their worst. Everyone is remarkably reserved and diplomatic, even when it comes to the most intense emotional expression. Every little detail is rich with significance. And there's no talking to the camera in first person, which lends it a very natural feel; of course I have no idea about the extent to which it's truly 'unscripted', but it's good fun regardless.

 

Also the food always looks incredible.

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I've only seen 4 feature films starring Buster Keaton, but I have given 5 stars to all of them (Sherlock Jr., Steamboat Bill Jr., Seven Chances, The General). Some of them start off slow-ish, but it all seems to pay off when the action starts escalating. What brilliance! I think that's what I'll keep watching to finish this year. I wonder if my life would have been different if I had seen these movies as a kid.

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Just watched Batman V Superman (my first time seeing it, and I went with the Ultimate Edition). It was... perfunctory. Better than Man Of Steel, I think. Not bad, as such, but just unremitting, brooding tension and grey muted tones throughout - even the big final sequence where

three superheroes fight a giant monster

is a glum, weary slog. I did like the way they played on the destruction of the previous film and questions of who Supes should answer to, if anyone, but man they needed some pacey sections in there.

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I finished watching Netflix's Dirk Gently and enjoyed it thoroughly. I could imagine it rubbing a lot of people the wrong way, but it really hit for me. Just don't expect it to make sense. 

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I saw Kelly Reichardt's Certain Women and loved it. I find her films to be so comforting, like she's sat me down in front of the fire and covered me with a blanket.  

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On 7/31/2016 at 9:12 PM, feelthedarkness said:
On 7/31/2016 at 3:18 AM, itsamoose said:

I just watched Hardcore Henry (the entirely first person movie) and it's basically a 90 minute call of duty level interspersed with far cry style first person cutscenes.  As you can imagine it's equal parts absurd and fascinating, but if you decide to watch it make sure to do so on a large screen a good distance away, particularly if first person games give you motion sickness.

 

as a fan of over the top action movies, i thought this totally earned it's conceit. constant escalation right to the end, and a few moments of charm, mostly through his friend, my fiance almost blasted a puke once or twice, so i'll cosign the motion warning. 

 

I just watched this and loved it. Technically it's very impressive, the way it captures so many FPS mechanics and tropes is hilarious, and yeah Sharlto Copley is great in it.

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3 hours ago, Ben X said:

 

I just watched this and loved it. Technically it's very impressive, the way it captures so many FPS mechanics and tropes is hilarious, and yeah Sharlto Copley is great in it.

I watched it a while ago. I wasn't super thrilled with it, although it's an interesting gimmick and yes, Copley is da man. The fact that nobody else could act and that aside from the gimmick the movie didn't have much going for it artistically were kind of downers, and really it wouldn't have hurt it if it had had, like, a good story? Or even a passable one? I'm also a little confused about when it's supposed to take place and what the technology of that world is like but whatever, that's probably my most minor concern.

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It was referred to as a gimmick on Slack too, and I think that's a bit unfair. It's not a trick to get you to watch the film, it is the film. Also, I thought the story fit perfectly - it's very video gamey and also has just the right amount of intrigue to keep the film going but doesn't get in the way of the action and technical showboating. (The film is quite sneaky in that any flaws it has enhance the FPS pastiche.)

 

I finished Dirk Gently and am upgrading my opinion to very good. I kept thinking it was going to run out of steam but it actually paced itself really nicely, hidden segments kept unfolding, and the emotional stories all struck. It reminded me a fair amount of Utopia.

 

Finally, I was staggered to find out that London Has Fallen is actually a really solid, brutal action movie. I don't remember the first one being this good. Gerard Butler is fucking hilarious in it.

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10 hours ago, Ben X said:

 

I finished Dirk Gently and am upgrading my opinion to very good. I kept thinking it was going to run out of steam but it actually paced itself really nicely, hidden segments kept unfolding, and the emotional stories all struck. It reminded me a fair amount of Utopia.

 

I genuinely have no idea how anyone enjoys this show. Putting aside the fact that I think it shares nothing w DG bar the name, I just... don't get it. It's unfunny, frustrating, and the characters are all hateable. A shame, bc the cast is actually pretty good!

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I just realized I forgot to type something here about Curse of the Jade Scorpion right after I watched it a week ago. Basically it's ridiculous, but not unenjoyable. There are Woody Allen movies that I think are good, and there are Woody Allen movies that I think are bad, and then there are Woody Allen movies that I think are bad but enjoy. This was very firmly in the last category. Like what the fuck was this movie? 

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Curse of the Jade Scorpion has maybe some of the worst/most hilarious self-casting of any of Woody's movies. The "suave macho detective played by Woody Allen" would have been wrung for all the irony it was worth in one of his early movies, but I genuinely think he was trying to play him as sexy and cool. Allen likes to complain that no one notices his acting range and while I agree he has some range, he does not have that range.

 

Mostly what I remember about Jade Scorpion is Allen's typical 30's fetishization, the great music, and that it was the last time he cast himself as the romantic lead opposite someone 30+ years younger than him (though he has a bad sex comedy scene opposite Saved By the Bell's Tiffani Thiessen in Hollywood Ending).

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Yeah I definitely think he thought he was being super slick in the movie.  I mean, the movie opens with Woody Allen getting the hot secretary to go on a date just by being Woody and then later on Charlize Theron is coming onto him something fierce without any sort of hypnosis thing.

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I watched a couple of (to one degree or another) Netflix shows recently:

 

The Expanse, which  I really enjoyed. It looks great, has a bunch of character actors doing good work, and the world-building is really detailed and interesting. Only ten episodes, too, which was a good choice. It doesn't spoon-feed you exposition, either, which is great. Unfortunately, it instead ends you off to exposition fat camp and wires your jaw shut. That is to say, it's very hard to follow what's going on, harder than The Wire for instance. After about five of the episodes and some Wikipedia episode summary readings, I had a feel for how all the different factions and plot threads intersected.

Only the Earth plotline lets it down - it could easily be lifted out wholesale without affecting the rest of the show, and it revolves around a miscast Shohreh Aghdashloo, who fluffs pretty much every single line reading.

 

And Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events, which I only watched an episode and a bit of. It's directed by Barry Sonnenfeld (who originally was going to direct the Jim Carrey movie but dropped out over budget concerns) and is like Coen Brothers for kids, but unfortunately only for kids. Looks nice, has Patrick Warburton, Joan Cusack and Neil Patrick Harris in it, but is just too pantomimey for me to enjoy. (As I remember it, the film wasn't that good either.)

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I finally saw The Martian.

 

It was okay but man there were a lot of things that bothered me about the movie. I actually enjoy Matt Damon quite a bit and I think his performance is the only thing that really holds the movie together. They spent too much time on other characters but not enough time for me to become invested in any of them. I didn't like that a random genius comes out of nowhere to offer a clever solution to get Matt Damon home and then promptly disappears, never to be seen or mentioned again. I also think the classic rock montages of Damon doing Mars shit were poorly executed and way too drawn out. But what bothered me most is how they Hollywood-ified so many parts of the movie to add tension. I was able to completely predict the series of events and setbacks that Matt Damon would experience because they literally just pulled out The Checklist that so many movies seem to follow. The only thing I didn't predict was that Iron Man shit because I just didn't think they would get that ridiculous.

 

It really just made me want to go watch Cast Away again.

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1 hour ago, Zeusthecat said:

It really just made me want to go watch Cast Away again.

Yeah I think I went into The Martian wanting Cast Away too much so I was disappointed when when I ended up getting was a super jokey Hollywood space adventure.  Actually I probably would have been disappointed no matter what just because I wasn't super into what the movie was, for a lot of the same reason you mentioned.

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